ABSTRACT Introduction: Annona muricata is among the most commonly used herbal remedies by cancer patients. Most previous systematic reviews on Annona muricata have reported studies… Read More »Effect of Annona muricata (Soursop) on Patients with Cancer: A Systematic Review
Introduction: The pharmacy drive-through service (P.D.T.S.) is an innovative medication dispensing service that aims to reduce the hurdles of collecting medications. Through the P.D.T.S., patients may have the convenience of getting medication at the drive-through pharmacy counter. By conducting a qualitative study, we explored the user’s experiences of P.D.T.S. in a public specialist hospital in Miri, Sarawak State of Malaysia. Methods: The P.D.T.S. users who consented to participate were invited to a semi-structured phone interview. We go in-depth on the awareness, barriers, application, improvements, and benefits of the P.D.T.S. The interviews lasted, on average, 15 minutes or until achieving data saturation. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim, and the transcripts were analysed thematically. Result: Participants perceived the P.D.T.S. as convenient and gave them a sense of safety through physical distancing while collecting their medications. On the contrary, they experienced confusion with the instructions on using P.D.T.S. and some degree of inflexibility, especially in the appointment setting. Conclusion: The users of P.D.T.S. had both positive and negative experiences with P.D.T.S. The negative aspect must be improved, especially the user’s instructions and the appointment system.
The Pharmacy value-added services (PVAS) has been implemented in Malaysian public hospitals to facilitate the collection of follow-up medications. In specific, PVAS include Integrated Drug Dispensing System, Medicine by Post, Drive-Through Pharmacy, and many more. While past studies examined the satisfaction towards PVAS and its impact on patients’ waiting time, little explored the awareness and the experience of patients towards each type of PVAS. This study aims to explore the patient’s awareness on PVAS, adoption of PVAS, their satisfaction towards PVAS, and willingness to adopt PVAS. This was a cross-sectional study conducted in January 2020. We invited the eligible patients or their family members to participate in the study. Respondents recruited at the Outpatient Pharmacy Department of Miri Hospital using convenient sampling. A questionnaire in the Malay language was developed and content validated to gather information on the demographic data, awareness on PVAS, adoption of PVAS, satisfaction towards PVAS, and willingness to adopt PVAS. A list of PVAS was included for the respondents to select the types they were aware of and used before. Results were presented as frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviation. A total of 398 respondents participated in the study. Majority of the respondents (70.1%) were aware that PVAS offered in Miri Hospital. However, about a third of the respondents (31.4%) had experience using PVAS. The most commonly used PVAS was Appointment Card Dispensing System (49.6%) and that with the least usage was Local Partial Medication Supply Service (2.4%). The Drive-Through Pharmacy has the greatest satisfaction score, 4.40 (SD=0.70), whereas Call-and-Collect Service was the least satisfied, 3.88 (SD=0.91). Majority of the respondents (86.2%), specifically 95.8% of the experienced PVAS user and 90.1% of inexperienced group, were willing to adopt PVAS to collect their follow-up medications. The Drive-thru Pharmacy, which has the greatest awareness and satisfaction yet low usage, should be further promoted for greater adoption. Besides, such PVAS should be expanded to other healthcare facilities.