Open AccessWork sampling observations of community pharmacists: a review
Author(s) -
EMMERTON LYNNE,
JEFFERSON KARYN
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
international journal of pharmacy practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.42
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 2042-7174
pISSN - 0961-7671
DOI - 10.1111/j.2042-7174.1996.tb00845.x
Subject(s) - medicine , pharmacy , pharmacist , sampling (signal processing) , work (physics) , data collection , family medicine , statistics , computer science , mechanical engineering , mathematics , filter (signal processing) , engineering , computer vision
Activities undertaken by community pharmacists may be monitored in individual pharmacies to analyse the division of labour before and after changes in work practices, and for general insight into the current roles of pharmacists. Studies based in community pharmacies have used work sampling techniques, with activities recorded by observers at defined intervals. Sampling methods and the selection of observation periods have varied between studies, with activities recorded at one‐ to‐ five‐minute intervals or at random. Differing classifications of activities also limit the comparison of findings. There exists a need for further research in this area to address sampling issues and limitations imposed by observers in pharmacies and to provide data relevant to present day practice. Self‐reporting of activities using electronic bar code readers and reminders may be feasible for data collection from multiple‐pharmacist pharmacies or larger samples of pharmacies.