Assisting Consumers with Their OTC Choices

Abstract

Background: The general public recognizes the important role of pharmacists in helping select over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, yet data to quantify the level of consumer demand are scarce. Objective: The purpose of this project was to describe consumer response to offers of assistance as a measure of consumer demand. Method: Six pharmacy students spent three weeks in three community pharmacies as OTC medicine advisors. Subsequent to formal offers of assistance, acceptances and refusals were tracked to gauge consumer demand for information. Results: On average, students had contact with 19.8 consumers per hour, leading to 11,174 interventions. Of these, 27.8% involved the exchange of clinical information, 36.9% saw the person decline assistance, 30.3% were limited to product location, while 5.0% constituted non-drug queries. Conclusion: Although a modest percentage, there were 3107 (27.8%) clinical intervention transactions, which is noteworthy for the short duration of the study and indicates significant consumer demand for this aspect of practice.