Information asymmetry in providing services to geriatric patients in pharmacies

Introduction. The Strategy of Actions in the Interests of Senior Citizens in the Russian Federation until 2025 has been approved on the territory of the Russian Federation. One of the main areas of this document is providing senior citizens with medicines and medical products. The document notes that this assistance should be personalized. The discrepancy between the provided, desired, and expected information leads to information asymmetry and reduces the level of pharmaceutical assistance. All of the above determined the purpose of this study. Objective. To study the information support of geriatric consumers of pharmacy organizations to optimize the information process. Material and methods. The study used: content analysis, comparison method, observation, interviewing and graphic method. The study materials were questionnaires of 207 geriatric consumers and questionnaires of 117 employees of these pharmacy organizations. Results. The study examined the main features of providing information to geriatric patients and identified the knowledge of pharmacy employees about the information needs of this group of consumers. Analysis of the obtained research results allowed us to identify 4 types of research gaps based on the theory of gaps in service in the following areas: a list of necessary information for geriatric patients, compliance of the information provided with the requirements of regulatory documents, reasons for the purchase made in the pharmacy, a list of information for the algorithm for pharmaceutical consulting. Conclusion. The study identified four types of gaps in service in information provision, which indicated the main areas of information asymmetry in the provision of pharmaceutical care to geriatric patients. Based on the results, recommendations were formed for conducting pharmaceutical consultations