Evaluation of Consultation in Community Pharmacies using Pseudo Customer Method in Sulaimani, Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Background: The role of today's pharmacists needs to be expanded to include pharmaceutical care concepts, making them healthcare professionals rather than drug sellers. Objective: The main objective of this research was to evaluate the counseling performance of staff in community pharmacies. Methods: This cross-sectional study was designed to evaluate real counseling practices of community pharmacies in Sulaimani city through pseudo-customer visits; 100 pharmacies were visited. Two scenarios were used. The first one was a symptom-based request, and the second one was a direct product request. Results: A total of 100 visits to pharmacies were conducted under the following scenarios: scenario 1= 50 visits and scenario 2= 50 visits. Data analysis revealed that 45% of the pharmacy staff did not counsel the pseudo-patients at all. The overall level of counseling (measured by criteria) has not exceeded 34%, but significant differences (p<0.05) were determined among the counseling criteria. The most counseled information by the pharmacy staff was the drug use (41%); many fewer asked other important questions, like “The medication is for whom?” or “Presence of any other symptoms?" (66%). In 93% of pharmacies, the staff did not ask the patients since when the symptoms started. Conclusions: This study demonstrated inadequate counseling and dispensing practice by community pharmacy staff. The finding highlighted the need for continuous professional training programs to improve the counseling and dispensing practices in community pharmacies.