Prediction of pharmacist intention to provide medication disposal education using the theory of planned behaviour

• Published in: Journal of evaluation in clinical practice Vol. 22; no. 5; pp. 653 - 661
• Main Authors: Tai, Bik-Wai Bilvick, Hata, Micah, Wu, Stephanie, Frausto, Sonya, Law, Anandi V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-10-2016
• Subjects: California; community pharmacist; Community Pharmacy Services; Cross-Sectional Studies; Forecasting; Humans; Intention; medical disposal; medication wastage; patient education; Patient Education as Topic; Pharmacists; prescription drug abuse; Prescription Drugs; Professional Role; Psychological Theory; Refuse Disposal; Surveys and Questionnaires; Teaching; theory of planned behaviour; medical disposal; community pharmacist; prescription drug abuse; theory of planned behaviour; patient education; medication wastage
• ISSN: 1356-1294; 1365-2753
• DOI: 10.1111/jep.12511

Rationale, aims and objectives
Lack of familiarity with proper medication disposal options among patients can lead to personal and environmental safety concerns, besides signalling non‐adherence. Given that community pharmacists are in a position to educate patients, this study assessed community pharmacists' knowledge on medication disposal and examined the utility of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) in predicting their intention to provide medication disposal education to their patients.
Methods
A cross‐sectional, self‐administered survey was distributed to community pharmacists in California. Descriptive statistics were reported for all survey items. Cronbach's alpha and Pearson correlation were used to determine the reliability for the four TPB constructs (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and intention). Multiple linear regressions were performed to predict intent using the other three TPB constructs.
Results
Pharmacists (n = 142) demonstrated a positive intention to provide education (mean = 5.91 ± 1.22; range: 2 to 8), but most (67.9%) provided this information once a month or less. Attitude (β = 0.266, P = 0.001), subjective norm (β = 0.333, P < 0.001) and perceived behavioural control (β = 0.211, P = 0.009) were significant predictors of intention, accounting for 40.8% of the variance in intention to provide disposal education. Scale reliability ranged from 0.596 to 0.619 for the four constructs. Few pharmacists accurately selected all of the appropriate recommendations of disposal for non‐controlled and controlled substances (15.9% and 10.1%, respectively).
Conclusion
Pharmacists showed favourable attitude, subjective norm, perceived behaviour control and intention in providing such education. However, their knowledge in this area may be lacking and they are not consistently providing this information to their patients.