Patient perceptions of the role of the pharmacist in building a therapeutic alliance

Objective: Therapeutic alliance is a concept that originated from psychotherapy and has been used to describe the relationship that must exist between a therapist and a patient for positive therapeutic change to take place. Therapeutic alliance has been found to be a significant predictor of therapeutic outcome across many helping professions. Since pharmacy practice is primarily a helping profession, this study examined aspects of the patient-pharmacist therapeutic alliance. Methods: A systematic random sample of 298 residents from Toledo, Ohio was surveyed via a mailed, self-administered questionnaire. Therapeutic alliance, alliance-strengthening behavior, and therapeutic impact were used as the study constructs. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics and path analysis. Results: The results showed that age of patients and alliance-strengthening behavior of pharmacists had a direct effect on therapeutic alliance. Also, alliance-strengthening behavior and therapeutic alliance had a direct effect on perceived therapeutic impact. Path analysis showed that alliance-strengthening behavior had both a direct as well as an indirect effect on therapeutic impact. Conclusions: Based on the findings, we conclude that therapeutic alliance is useful for study and application to pharmacy practice since building a therapeutic alliance between patients and pharmacists could help achieve positive therapeutic outcomes.