Community Pharmacist’s Perception of the Benefits, Patient’s Needs, Readiness, and Barriers to Implementing Telepharmacy Services

Telepharmacy has shown a beneficial impact on delivering pharmacy service yet still has some limitations that discourage pharmacists from using it. The perceptions of pharmacists towards telepharmacy are required to map the strategy to develop telepharmacy. This study was aimed at ascertaining the pharmacists’ perception and analyzing factors associated with perception towards telepharmacy services of community pharmacists in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. A cross-sectional study using a validated 29-item questionnaire was carried out in Yogyakarta during March-July 2023. The survey was conveniently distributed to the community pharmacists using paper-based and Google form links shared to WhatsApp groups and individual contact numbers. Of the 273 pharmacists, 87.5% (N=239) were female, most of them had experienced less than 5 years working in community pharmacy, 44.7% (n=122) and had been implementing telepharmacy, 79.9% (N=218). All the pharmacists showed a positive perception of telepharmacy. Testing the demographic characteristics associated with pharmacists’ perception, showed that the type of pharmacy showed a significant correlation to benefit (p=0.022), readiness (p=0.000), and barrier to implement telepharmacy (0.036), while the availability of telepharmacy has been significantly associated with the perception of benefit (p=0.000), patients’ need (p=0.004), readiness (p=0.000) and barriers to implementing telepharmacy (p=0.0002). The positive perception of community pharmacists in Indonesia regarding telepharmacy service needs to be optimized with comprehensive regulations, guidelines, and technical infrastructure support.