Open Access<p>Patients’ Attitudes, Awareness, and Opinions About Community Pharmacies in Japan: Next Steps for the Health Support Pharmacy System</p>
Author(s) -
Noritake Hirota,
Noboru Okamura
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
integrated pharmacy research and practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2230-5254
DOI - 10.2147/iprp.s275288
Subject(s) - pharmacy , family medicine , pharmacist , medicine , health care , nursing , community health , public health , political science , law
Despite the formal establishment of the Health Support Pharmacy system, few community pharmacies have transitioned to this new designation in Japan. Moreover, patients' perspectives on the usefulness of health-support pharmacies and community pharmacies have not yet been investigated. In this work, we investigated patients' attitudes, opinions, and awareness as users of member pharmacies of the Japan Federation of Democratic Medical Institutions (Min-Iren), with respect to two essential functions provided by community pharmacies-primary care and health support-to identify modern challenges facing community pharmacies.