Consumer behaviour in the waiting area

Objective of the study: To determine consumer behaviour in the pharmacy waiting area. Method: The applied methods for data-collection were direct observations. Three Dutch community pharmacies were selected for the study. The topics in the observation list were based on available services at each waiting area (brochures, books, illuminated new trailer, children’s play area, etc.). Per patient each activity was registered, and at each pharmacy the behaviour was studied for 2 weeks. Results: Most patients only waited during the waiting time at the studied pharmacies. Few consumers obtained written information during their wait. Conclusion: The waiting area may have latent possibilities to expand the information function of the pharmacy and combine this with other activities that distract the consumer from the wait. Transdisciplinary research, combining knowledge from pharmacy practice research with consumer research, has been a useful approach to add information on queueing behaviour of consumers

The ICPC coding system in pharmacy:developing a subset, ICPC-Ph

The ICPC system is a coding system developed for general medical practice, to be able to code the GP-patient encounters and other actions. Some of the codes can be easily used by community pharmacists to code complaints and diseases in pharmaceutical care practice. We developed a subset of the ICPC codes for community pharmacists. This article describes the method used and the resulting ICPC-Ph list