En enkätstudie om apotekskunders syn på och kännedom om farmaceuters användning av elektroniskt expertstöd, EES

Drugs are an essential part of health care today. They improve and extend the lives of many people. If drugs are wrongfully combined or given in inaccurate dose, it may lead to poorer quality of life, hospital admissions and even deaths. Drug-related problems cost society a large amount of money each year. To minimize these problems, there are now electronic decision supports that doctors and pharmacists can use. At all pharmacies in Sweden, the electronic expert support system available. The EES analyzes electronic prescriptions and doses prescribed and indicates if it detects any potential drug-related problems. Such risks may be that the customer has several drugs with the same effect, drug interactions or that the drug is inappropriate due to age. For children, there are special warnings that may be that the doctor on the prescription has prescribed a higher dose of the drug against what is commonly given to a child. The purpose of the study was to investigate pharmacy customers view of and knowledge about pharmacist use of EES. Data were collected via surveys for 100 hours at several different pharmacies in Sweden. The vast majority of pharmacy customers did not know of EES, only one fifth of the survey respondents knew what EES meant. Consent from the customer is required for the pharmacist to use EES when dispensing drugs and one third of the customers did not know if they agreed to this or not. Half of the customers did not know if the pharmacist used EES when the drugs were dispensed. Most of the customers also did not know whether their drug dispensing would be safer, if they would get better advice if the EES was used or if they wanted the pharmacist to use EES as a tool in the prescription expedition. The study shows that pharmacy customers' views and knowledge about the use of EES by pharmacists are limited. The reason for this may be that it takes extra time for pharmacists to inform customers about what EES means and ask them for consent that the expert support should be used in the prescription expedition. Many times the pharmacist is experiencing a shortage of time to do this. The reason why EES is not used may be because the pharmacist does not feel adequately educated in how the decision support works and therefore chooses not to use it. It may also be due to communication difficulties such as language problems, hearing impairment or the customer's reduced cognitive ability. There is a need for communicative improvements between the customer and the pharmacist so that the pharmacists will increase the use of EES when dispensing drugs. There is also a need for pharmacists to get education in how EES works and how to use the decision support. If this is done, it will provide the customer with a better drug use with reduced risk of side effects and drug-related problems