EVALUATION OF PATIENT COUNSELING IN DIFFERENT HOSPITAL OF KARACHI, PAKISTAN; A NEGLECTED DOMAIN OF PHARMACY

Abstract

Patient counseling is a critical component of dispensing process that provides information, advice and assistance to help patients using their medication properly. The objective of our study was to analyze whether patient counseling services are provided or not and how efficiently it is being conducted. For this purpose a questionnaire based cross sectional survey of pharmacists was done in different hospital set ups of the Karachi city with a sample size of 30. The results show that counseling services are provided by all the Hospitals in which survey was conducted, medication charts are used by 15 (50 %) samples while patient education program is not organized by 18 (60 %) samples. The results obtained from the survey conclude that patient counseling is conceptually present in all hospital setups but not done efficiently or in appropriate manner. Steps should be taken by the authorities, pharmacists and the patients to make counseling more effective.