Empowerment interventions for pharmacies to comply with the Good Pharmacy Practice (GPP) in Thailand

Good Pharmacy Practices (GPP) is to provide people with quality pharmacy services as well as to promote drug use safety. Objectives: To find out the effect of the process of empowering modern pharmacies to meet the GPP standards and to investigate the problems and obstacles that affect the pharmacy licensees in complying with the GPP. Methods: An action research using the Deming Cycle (PDCA) to design a process, in collaboration with relevant parties, to promote GPP compliance. The process consisted of a group intervention and an individual intervention designed to be consistent with the SOAP assessment. The action plan was implemented over a 9-month period. The GPP outcomes were assessed. Samples were 32 pharmacy licensees in Nakhon Ratchasima Province, which have not yet passed the GPP assessment. They were randomly selected by the stratified sampling method. Results: After participating in the empowerment process, there were 62.50% or 20 pharmacies passed the GPP assessment in all categories. The average GPP compliance score had statistically significantly higher than before the process (p<0.001). For the satisfaction of the participants, the overall score was at the highest level. Conclusion: The process of empowering modern pharmacies to meet GPP standards showed a positive effect. The rate of pharmacies that passed the GPP criteria also increased. In addition, the participants in the process were highly satisfied. Therefore, the PDCA cycle should be used in pharmacy development. Meanwhile, GPP self-assessment is a tool to help pharmacy licensees in systematic problem resolution. (AU)

Pharmacy licensees and their characters that affect Good Pharmacy Practice (GPP) Compliance

Objective: To study the licensee’s factors that affect the GPP compliance, including problems and obstacles in the improvement of pharmacies. Methods: Samples: 90 of the licensees of the modern pharmacies in Nakhon Ratchasima province that did not pass the GPP evaluation. A cross-sectional analytical research with mixed method was done with 2 parts 1) questionnaire survey to assess the attitude, perception, and perceived difficulty of the GPP based on Theory of planned behavior (TPB). The response rate at 68.89%. 2) Focus group discussion to find the problems and obstacles in pharmacy improvement to meet the GPP requirement. Results: the licensees who were a pharmacist have more compliance with the GPP than the non-pharmacist licensees (p=0.001), and the open on daytime period pharmacies (≥8 hours/day) have more compliance with the GPP than pharmacies that are open for certain hours (p=0.001). Attitude, perception and perceived difficulty of GPP from survey and focus group discussion could use as inputs for initiating an empowerment plan for pharmacy licensees. Conclusion: For the reasons that have more tendency to comply with the GPP than others, the pharmacists should be promoted to be the licensees, as well as responsible for operating the pharmacies. The pharmacy should have a pharmacist stationed 8 hours/day to provide the customers with professional standard service. (AU)