Patients’ views on information about medications: a pharmacy-based survey focusing on their information sources and experiences of pharmacists using a clinical decision support system

Abstract

The aim of this study was to describe patients’ view on information regarding their medication with focus on community pharmacists’ use of the clinical decision support system EES (electronic expert support system). This study was performed as a survey among patients who were collecting prescription medication at seven Swedish community pharmacies, with 281 respondents (response rate of 68%). Results show that patients receive information regarding their medication from many different sources with differences related to age, gender and native language. In general, most patients seemed satisfied with the information they had about their medicines, and with the information they got from pharmacists. Results show that awareness of how pharmacists work to improve medication safety, and knowledge about EES is low. However, results indicate that many patients have high trust in pharmacists, expect them to check for potential DRPs and are positive to pharmacists using EES more.