Published May 23, 2020 | Version v1
Journal Open

Mentioning anosmia improves how community pharmacies handle phone call requests during the COVID-19 pandemic: An audit study in Colombia

Authors/Creators

Description

 
Pharmacies are a vital part of the healthcare system as providers of medicines and other health
services. In low and middle income countries (LMICs hereafter), community pharmacies are often
the first line of contact with the health sector (World Health Organization, 1997). Moreover, their
role might also be extended to medical and pharmaceutical advisors when the costs, in terms of
time or money, are perceived to be lower compared to visit a healthcare center (Goel et al., 1996;
Kamat and Nichter, 1998; Mwabu, 1989). Moreover, during the COVID-19 pandemic, consulta-
tions with community pharmacies might increase due to the risk of contagion from visiting a
healthcare center, and the congestion of dedicated emergency lines.
The
de iure
role of community pharmacies is limited to the delivery of pharmaceutical products,
most of them with prescription. However, the limited capacity of the healthcare system in LMICs
and the lack of enforcement of delivering products with prescription only, grant a more ample
de
facto
role to community pharmacies. During the pandemics, the WHO guidelines indicate that re-
ports of COVID-19 symptoms must be centralized throughout national or local emergency lines
1
(World Health Organization, 2020). The purpose of this study is to explore the pharmacists’ com-
pliance with these guidelines, which limit their role to refer clients to the dedicated lines; and to
study whether this compliance results affected by relevant COVID-19 information.
We conducted a telephone audit study, by calling to 262 community pharmacies located in
seven municipalities, from three
Departamentos
(states) in Colombia. In each call, the auditor men-
tioned that her brother was feeling sick and listed a group of symptoms. Subsequently, the auditor
asked the pharmacist “What would she (or he) recommends.” We coded whether the pharmacist:
(i) recommended to call the emergency line, (ii) recommended to visit a medical doctor or visit
a healthcare center, (iii) prescribed any pharmaceutical product, or (iv) recommended to visit the
pharmacy

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Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.31235/osf.io/s2z47

Related works

Is compiled by
10.31235/osf.io/s2z47 (DOI)

Dates

Submitted
2020-05-23