Understanding decision of pharmacy-owning pharmacists to enroll in the community pharmacy accreditation program in Nakhonratchasima province

Abstract

To explain factors affecting pharmacy-owning pharmacists’ decision to enroll in the Community Pharmacy Accreditation (CPA) program. The study was divided into two phases. Phase I consisted of a survey by 33 returned questionnaires for an overall 73.33 % response rate. Phase II was in-depth interview with seven pharmacists in accredited pharmacies and ten pharmacists in non-accredited pharmacies. Data were collected between August 1 and September 30, 2008. The results showed that the pharmacists in accredited pharmacy had prominent intrinsic motivation compared to pharmacists in non-accredited pharmacy. Pharmacists in accredited pharmacy were aware of pharmacy professionalism and wanted to extend their roles of pharmacy professionalism as well as provide good pharmacy services to patients. They saw value of joining CPA program in the way that they had opportunity to provide good pharmaceutical care to patients. For pharmacists in non-accredited pharmacy, business benefit was the main factor that influenced an extrinsic motivation and result in decision to enroll in CPA program. They did not see any benefit of joining it and they said that most consumers did not know about CPA program and could not differentiate between accredited pharmacy and non-accredited pharmacy. Other factors were CPA awareness, futility, support, recognition of patients and community, cost, availability of pharmacists, standard of pharmacy and law enforcement. This study suggested that public promoting on CPA program should consider both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The standard of pharmacy for CPA program should be revised for the program improvement, especially standard 2 (quality management) and standard 3 (good pharmacy service).