Physicians’ perceptions and attitudes toward clinical pharmacy services in urban general hospitals in China

Background To provide better patient care, it is very important for the physicians to be willing to accept clinical pharmacy services (CPSs). Objectives To explore physicians’ perceptions and overall attitudes toward CPSs in China, to determine the dimensions of factors underlying the physicians’ perceptions of different types of CPSs, and to analyze the determinants of physicians’ overall attitudes. Setting Inpatient units of urban general hospitals in China. Methods Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 990 physicians in the inpatient units of 22 general hospitals in seven cities between June and October 2012. Descriptive statistical analysis, factor analysis, and logistic regression were used. Main outcome measures The physicians’ comfort levels and their overall attitudes toward CPSs, as well as the dimensions of factors underlying their perceptions of CPSs. The predictors of overall attitudes included demographics, the characteristics of self-perceived workload, the frequency of communication with clinical pharmacists, and the perception variables for the different types of CPSs. Results Amongst the 646 questionnaires retrieved, 81.3 % of the physicians had positive overall attitudes. Factor analysis resulted in four factors, with a cumulative explained variance of 69.0 %, as follows: clinical pharmacists’ support of physicians’ decisions; auxiliary work; prescribing; and independent decision-making activities. The results of logistic regression showed that the degree of comfort with clinical pharmacists’ support of physicians’ decisions had the greatest influence on physicians’ overall attitudes toward CPSs. Conclusion From the perspective of improving physicians’ overall attitudes, the prioritization strategy of developing CPSs in China should focus on the role of clinical pharmacists within the decision support system for medication management, thus encouraging clinical pharmacists to interact more frequently with physicians at the ward level.