PATIENT MEDICATION COUNSELLING PRACTICE ON DISPENSING OF MEDICINES AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS IN OUTPATIENT PHARMACIES OF BAHIR DAR CITY, NORTHWEST ETHIOPIA

Dispensing drugs with appropriate counseling is a critical part of the drug use process. Proper counseling will result in an improvement in patient compliance and its therapeutic outcome. Regardless of the modern facilities, extensive education, and careful diagnosis, in reality, inappropriate or incorrect dispensing results in all the benefits of the health care system valueless and contributes for the raise of drug resistance to a dangerously high level. Despite this, globally more than half of all medicines are dispensed or sold inappropriately. This study was aimed at assessing patient medication counseling practice on dispensing of medicines and its predictors in outpatient pharmacies of Bahir Dar city, 2020. A cross-sectional study was employed using an observational checklist and interviewer-administered questionnaire to all outpatient pharmacies of Bahir Dar city with considering only one dispenser as a participant from each outpatient pharmacies. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. Out of 123 dispensers, only 59.3% of them have good patient counseling practice and no one delivers complete medication counseling for the patient in Bahir Dar city outpatient pharmacies. The most frequent drug information give to clients were unit dose (93.5%), frequency of administration (92.7%), and duration of therapy (76.4%). Whereas, drug storage places at home, what patients do if they miss a dose, and not sharing drugs with others were least frequently counseled. Educational qualifications, workload, and years of work experience affect medication counseling practice significantly. Patient medication counseling is still unacceptably low in Bahir Dar city outpatient pharmacies and it was significantly affected by patient load, educational qualification, and work experience. So, to come up with better improvement in patient medication counseling practice these factors need special focus by the concerned bodies.