A Preliminary Study on the Influence of Male Community Pharmacists’ Appearance on Patient Trust: A Conjoint Analysis Approach

The primary aim of this study is to examine whether the appearance of pharmacists in Japan is an issue worthy of discussion. A web-based survey was conducted in June 2023 among 500 men and women aged 25-74 (male/female ratio=1 : 1, equally assigned to five age categories). The respondents were asked about their trust in eight pictures of male pharmacists with different appearance factors (trust scale: seven questions, 6-point response). The pictures were combined using an orthogonal table for five factors (hair color (black and brown), hair length (normal and long), accessories, white coat condition (clean and dirty), and clothing under white coat (Y shirt+tie, Y shirt+T-shirt)). The data were analyzed through conjoint analysis. The median age of the 500 respondents was 50.5 (38-62) years. The highest mean confidence score for each of the eight images was 28.8(SD6.4) and the lowest was 16.1 (SD7.1). Conjoint analysis indicated that the relative importance of clothing and hair to trustworthiness was 50.9% and 33.8%, respectively. The condition of the white coat was high at 29.1%. The level utilities scores were 0.341 for "Y-shirt" and -0.008 for "Y-shirt+tie" for clothing under the white coat. Notably, cleanliness of the white coat had a greater impact than hair color or length. The results indicate that the appearance of male pharmacists significantly affects initial trust. Thus, appearance standards for pharmacists, including females, should be actively discussed.