Community pharmacists attitudes towards mental illness and providing pharmaceutical care for mentally ill patients

OBJECTIVE: To examine the attitudes of community pharmacist to both mental illness and provision of pharmaceutical care.

METHODS: The study was conducted from May 2006 to September 2006 in College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The survey composed of the demographic characteristics of the respondents, who were asked 6 Likert type questions on the attitudes of the pharmacists toward mental illness, providing pharmaceutical care to mentally ill patients, the barriers of the provision of the service and differentiation between different types of mental illness.

RESULTS: Forty-three pharmacists participated in the study. Eighty-eight percent of the pharmacists felt that mental illness was the same as other illnesses. Sixty-six percent of the respondents “strongly agree,” or “agree” that mentally ill patients were easily recognizable. Thirty-three percent of the respondents “disagree,” or “strongly disagree” that mentally ill patients have no ability to tell right from wrong. In general, 43.3-87.7% of respondents are being “much more” or “more” interested, comfortable, and confident to perform pharmaceutical care to mentally ill patients. An average range of 30-67% of respondents felt neutral, or “much more” or “more” comfortable, confident for screening and solving drug-related problems, and compliance with drug therapy. Barriers that limit the provision of pharmaceutical care to the mentally ill patients include the lack of training in pharmaceutical care practice (88.4%), lack of therapeutic knowledge (83.7%), lack of documentation skill (79%), lack of communication (76.8%), lack of space for counseling (76.7%), insufficient time (74.5%) and lack of staff (72.1%).

CONCLUSION: Although pharmacists have positive attitudes to both mental illness and providing pharmaceutical care to mentally ill patients, they felt uncomfortable counseling or carrying out follow-up monitoring of patients for adverse drug-related problems.