DOI: 10.36347/sajp

Pages: 282-292

Patient counseling is an integral part of community pharmacy practice. It is an important service which helps improve the knowledge and understanding of patients on drugs requiring longer duration of regimen. This is particularly important in tuberculosis (TB) control where lack of knowledge and understanding can lead to drug resistance. The study aimed to measure the frequency of verbal counseling in community pharmacy and to determine the types of information provided. Three phases were done in 89 randomly selected community pharmacies. The first phase was face-to-face counseling of simulated patient (SP) with prescription, second was telephone counseling and the last phase was survey questionnaire using an 11-point likert scale which measured the practices of community pharmacists in patient counseling. During Phase I, most of the pharmacists and staff provided insufficient information on anti-TB drugs. In Phase II, some pharmacists provided only little information needed by the SP. In Phase III, a mean of 6.15, interpreted as “satisfactory” showed that pharmacists and staff provided counseling on anti-TB drugs but was limited to common information like name of the medication, indication and the dosage of the drugs. The results of the study suggest that good counselling practices on anti-TB drugs should be improved.