Community pharmacists’ attitudes toward dispensing errors at community pharmacy setting in Central Saudi Arabia

Purpose: The main objective of this study was to survey pharmacists’ attitudes toward dispensing errors in community pharmacy settings in Saudi Arabia. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of community pharmacists in Riyadh region, Saudi Arabia was conducted over a period of 6 months from March through September 2012. A stratified random sample of eight hundred registered pharmacy practitioners was collected all over Riyadh region. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS version19.0 for windows (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois). Results: The response rate was almost 82%. The majority of the respondents are young adults (90.2%). The median for years of registration of respondent pharmacists was 9 years (range 1–37 years). About 62% (407) of the respondents have a positive response while only 37.8% (n= 248) have a negative response in this respect. The major factors identified were pharmacist assistant (82.2%) and high workload (72.5%). The most appreciated factors that help reducing dispensing errors are improving doctors’ hand writing and reducing work load of the pharmacist (82.9% and 82.8% respectively), having drug names that are distinctive (76.1%) and having more than one pharmacist in duty (75.5%). Conclusion: In conclusion, majority of community pharmacists indicated that the risk of dispensing errors was increasing and most of them were aware of dispensing errors. It is obvious from the study results that dispensing errors is a big concern for community pharmacy practice in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the professional organizations and Pharmacy Boards in Saudi Arabia to determine standards for the profession.