PATIENTS’ SATISFACTION WITH ANTIRETROVIRAL REFILL SERVICES PROVIDED BY COMMUNITY PHARMACISTS IN IBADAN, SOUTHWEST NIGERIA

Abstract

Community pharmacy antiretroviral refill service was recently rolled out in Nigeria as part of efforts to decentralize HIV/AIDS service delivery. Patient satisfaction can identify specific areas of improvement on which to build improvement efforts. This study was conducted to investigate patients’ satisfaction with antiretroviral refill services provided by community pharmacists in Ibadan, Southwest Nigeria. A descriptive cross-sectional survey using a multi-stage sampling technique to select 185 clientswho are accessing the antiretroviral services from the 14 different community pharmacies providing antiretroviral refill services. Data was collected with a validated semistructured interviewer administered questionnaire to document socio-demographic characteristics, mode of operation of community pharmacy, satisfaction toward services and barriers to accessing care at the community pharmacy. Satisfaction was measured on a 16- point scale where ≤8 and >8 were rated low and high satisfaction respectively. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and chi-square test at p < 0.05. Mean age of respondents was 47.1±9.2 years, 73% were females, 63.8% were Christians, 82.2% were Yorubas, 44.3% had tertiary education, 29.7% were tradersand 43.2% had been managing HIV between 11 and 15 years. All (100%) the respondents were satisfied with working hours of the pharmacy and below half (34.6%) preferred to get their antiretrovirals drugs refilled after working hours from 5pm till the pharmacy closes. The average time spent for refilling of antiretrovirals was not more than 10 minutes for59.5% of the respondents while 82.7% were satisfied with the time spent on refilling.Overall mean satisfaction score for the services was 13.6±2.1 with 9.2% having low satisfaction and 96.2% had high satisfaction with the services at community pharmacies. Only afew (6.5%) pharmacy personnel showed any form of discrimination or stigmatization when providing service,9.7% had challenges with drug unavailability or insufficiency,1.1% charged service fees and 2.2% of the pharmacy staff had poor attitude to clients. In addition, distance to the pharmacy and non-suitability of the location were also reported as challenges with the model. However, the duration of appointment, level of satisfaction towards service and satisfaction of appointment time were statistically associated with preference of community pharmacies for refill service. The level of patient satisfaction with the community pharmacy antiretroviral refill service was high especially within the domains of confidentiality, waiting times, greater flexibility and convenience.The results also showed that there was a statistically significant association between the level of satisfaction towards service at the community pharmacy and preference of community pharmacy for refill service