Insights into the perceptions of health care providers towards clinical pharmacy services for advanced pharmaceutical care

Background Clinical pharmacy is a relatively new field of practice in Indian hospital settings, the health care providers (HCPs) has scarce knowledge regarding the roles & activities of the clinical pharmacist. The objective of this study was to determine the perceptions of health care providers towards clinical pharmacists who work on healthcare teams in terms of the potential benefits of clinical pharmacists and the current expectations of physicians and to explore the barriers that impede the clinical pharmacists' contributions from the physician's point of view. Methodology The study was conducted as an interventional study in a tertiary care hospital among HCPs (n = 153) in three phases. Pre and post-interventional phase consisted of auditing the behaviour and attitudes of HCPs about clinical pharmacy services and interventional phase consisted of developing professional recognition & professional awareness. The statistical test was performed using the Chi-Square test and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results 41.1% of the HCPs stated that they have not heard about clinical pharmacy services. A significantly higher number of physicians prefer face to a face communication system (χ 2 = 6.428, df = 1, p < 0.05) compared to nurses & other HCPs. Lack of clinical pharmacist time was found to be the first barrier to the inter-professional relationship. 48.6% of the physicians reported that they never had open communication with the pharmacist. Conclusion GPs are aware of the current professional training of clinical pharmacist as being more patient orientated. However, GPs strongly disagreed that clinical pharmacist has the right to set therapeutic decisions or to maintain a complete medication profile of patients.