Communication barriers in a community pharmacy and ways to overcome them

Abstract

Efficient communication is an integral part of everyday life and as such is important for the successful professional work of a pharmacist as a member of the medical personnel, foremost on the primary health care level. Nowadays, few studies of pharmaceutical practice in the field of communication in state pharmacies are focused on the communication from a pharmacist's point of view. Few studies have dealt with the analysis of the interactive process of communication and few studies have been directed at identifying essential factors necessary for measuring the communication in a pharmacy, or to the development of communication skills that both a pharmacist and a patient should develop in order to have more successful communication and improve their interpersonal relationship, providing more adequate health care services, which would lead to the re-professionalisation of pharmaceutical expertise in the healthcare system. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to identify the barriers in communication and ways to overcome them by reviewing the literature, with a particular emphasis on personal barriers of pharmacists in community pharmacies.

Uspešna komunikacija je sastavni deo svakodnevnog života, a kao takva bitna za uspešno profesionalno funkcionisanje farmaceuta kao zdravstvenih radnika, pre svega na primarnom nivou zdravstvene zaštite. Istraživanja farmaceutske prakse iz oblasti komunikacije u javnoj apoteci uglavnom su fokusirana na komunikaciju iz ugla farmaceuta. Mali je broj onih koja se bave analizom interaktivnosti procesa komunikacije i koja su usmerena na otkrivanje esencijalnih faktora neophodnih za merenje komunikacije u apoteci, kao i razvoj komunikacionih veština koje bi trebalo da razviju, bilo farmaceut bilo pacijent/korisnik zdravstvene usluge, zarad uspešnije komunikacije, poboljšanja odnosa i pružanja adekvatnije zdravstvene usluge. Stoga je cilj ovog rada da se na osnovu pregleda literature prikažu barijere u komunikaciji i načini za njihovo prevazilaženje, sa posebnim osvrtom na personalne barijere od strane farmaceuta u javnim apotekama.