ABSTRACT
Research has shown that pharmacists interpret pharmaceutical care as patient counseling. However, it has not been fully embraced because of some limitations in the competency of pharmacists. Here, we conducted a study to describe the characteristics of the information provided by pharmacists in counseling sessions. This was an observational study with 54 audiotape recording of pharmacist–patient communication, involving six pharmacists in an outpatient counseling setting of a private hospital in Surabaya. The recordings obtained were encoded using the RIAS (Roter Interaction Analysis System). Characteristics of the information provided by pharmacists pertained to therapeutic regimens (indications, side effects, mechanism of action, interactions, dosage form, administration and duration of therapy), medical conditions (laboratory findings, diseases, and allergic conditions), and lifestyle regimens (exercise and food intake). In this study, pharmacists implemented the standard of pharmaceutical care services. However, they tended to provide only general information. There seemed to be a lack of detailed information related to patients’ medical conditions.
