Survey on Patient Safety and Pharmacist Working Conditions

Abstract

Objectives: To assess pharmacists’ perspectives on patient safety in relation to their working conditions. Methods: The survey was sent to 1000 pharmacists within Arizona. Results for the item evaluating pharmacists’ level of agreement with the statement regarding their employers providing a work environment optimized for safe patient care were compared to those from the Oregon Working Conditions Survey using Mann Whitney U. Mann Whitney U was also used to compare agreement between Arizona pharmacists who filled less than and more than 200 prescriptions per shift, and between Arizona community and hospital pharmacists. Chi-squared test was used to compare community pharmacists in Arizona and Oregon. A priori alpha level was 0.05 for all statistical tests. Results: Arizona pharmacists were significantly more likely than Oregon pharmacists to agree with the statement that their employer provided a work environment conducive to patient safety (p < 0.001). Arizona pharmacists who filled less than 200 prescriptions per shift agreed significantly more than those who filled more than 200 prescriptions per shift (p < 0.001). Hospital pharmacists were significantly more likely to agree with the patient safety statement than community pharmacists (p < 0.001). Conclusions: The pharmaceutical climate may play a role in the difference between Oregon and Arizona. With a lower percentage of chain/mass merchandiser community pharmacy respondents in Arizona, the overall agreement with the patient safety statement could have been influenced by practice type. Regardless, higher prescription volume still remains as a factor that can have potentially deleterious effects on optimization of patient safety.