What do mothers of young children think of community pharmacists? A descriptive survey.

Abstract

AIM: To discover the attitudes of mothers of young children towards community pharmacists, and mothers' use of community pharmacies for childhood illnesses OBJECTIVES: To discover how frequently mothers visit pharmacies; for which childhood complaints they tend to consult a pharmacist first, rather than other health professionals; to identify how helpful mothers feel their pharmacists are; and to identify whether mothers prefer pharmacists with particular demographic characteristics, eg having children of their own. METHODS: A questionnaire survey based on the results of four focus groups conducted with mothers of children aged under five years. 117 questionnaires were distributed by five pharmacies in Northern England to a convenience sample between July and September 2000, with one written reminder to non-respondents one month later. A total of 85 (73%) were returned and the anonymised data were entered into SPSS for Windows for analysis. RESULTS: 61% of mothers claimed to visit the pharmacy once a month or more but only 22% of mothers claimed to have had advice from the pharmacist once a month or more. 57% of the mothers are loyal customers to one pharmacy. 87% of the mothers reported that pharmacist's advice was helpful or very helpful. Mothers sought advice from pharmacists for minor childhood ailments but not always in the first instance. Mothers did not feel that the demographic characteristics of the pharmacists affected the advice given but they expressed a personal preference for receiving advice from female pharmacists with children. LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: This was an exploratory study with a small sample so the results cannot be generalised. Also, convenience sampling is prone to bias. However, this qualitative study presents some preliminary indications about mothers' use of pharmacies for advice on young children's ailments, and suggests aspects that warrant further investigation. CONCLUSION: In this study, mothers of children under five years of age rated pharmacist's advice as helpful. They did not consider that the demographics of the pharmacist would affect the advice they received, but preferred to consult a pharmacist with children.