Pharmacists' views of patient counseling.

The goal of this study was to assess whether pharmacists rate eight elements of counseling of equal importance in different dispensing situations. A sample of 708 pharmacists was asked to complete a pretested questionnaire about patient counseling; 697 provided usable responses, for a response rate of 98%. Using multivariate analysis of variance and analysis of variance, we found significant differences (p < 0.01) in pharmacists' ratings of the importance of counseling patients in different situations. Pharmacists used patient familiarity with the medication and the perceived seriousness of potential consequences to the patient to determine the importance of each element of counseling.