Language-related self-efficacy of pharmacy staff in providing medication counselling to older adults in a linguistically diverse setting

Background: Effective verbal medication counselling is crucial for patients' understanding, medication adherence, and treatment outcomes. In linguistically diverse populations, language barriers can pose a significant challenge, when older patients prefer to receive information in languages other than English. Objective: To assess pharmacy staff's self-efficacy in providing medication counselling to older adults in Singapore's four official languages (English, Mandarin [Chinese], Malay and Tamil) and other Chinese dialects. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey among 121 pharmacy staff working in public primary care clinics. Respondents reported the languages or dialects they used when counselling older patients (aged 60 and above) and completed a six-item self-efficacy scale (1-5, higher scores indicate greater self-efficacy) for each language or dialect, covering aspects of greeting patients, explaining medication information and explaining serious health risks. Results: Mean (± standard deviation) self-efficacy scores were 4.5 ± 0.6 for English, 3.7 ± 1.0 for Mandarin, 3.4 ± 1.3 for Malay, 4.5 ± 0.9 for Tamil, and between 3.0 and 3.1 (±0.9-1.0) for other Chinese dialects. Across all languages or dialects, the least self-efficacy was in explaining serious health risks. Conclusion: Pharmacy staff exhibited lower self-efficacy counselling in official languages other than English and in other Chinese dialects, highlighting a potential care gap. The findings underscore the need for targeted language support for pharmacy staff to enhance communication among ageing, multilingual populations, such as in Singapore.