Slovenian pharmacy performance: a patient-centred approach to patient satisfaction survey content development

Objective To identify content of pharmacy performance relevant to patient satisfaction. Setting Interviews with pharmacy users were conducted at their homes. The Delphi meeting was run at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Method A two-phase process was employed. In Phase I, interviews with 43 pharmacy users were conducted to identify patients’ experiences and expectations relating to pharmacies. The content analysis of their responses resulted in a list of themes from which items were generated. In Phase II, a 10 member expert panel was employed in a two round Delphi technique to rate the importance of each item for the patient satisfaction. Main outcome measure Themes derived from the interviews and their importance for patient satisfaction as assessed by the expert panel. Results Seventy-nine themes were generated from the survey responses which were grouped into four main categories: ‘Relations’, ‘Counseling’, ‘Physical facilities and location’ and ‘Process’. In total, 69 items were generated. The expert panel rated 84% of generated items as very or somewhat important. Conclusion The qualitative study provides insights on the content of pharmacy performance relevant to patients. Identified categories encompass a wide range of issues that contribute to patient satisfaction with pharmacy performance.