Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Factors influencing community pharmacists recommendation of over-the-counter medications in four Vietnam cities

Van De Tran^1,2 , Valeria Valeryevna Dorofeeva¹, Ekaterina Efimovna Loskutova¹, Tatyana Petrovna Lagutkina¹, Irina Vladimirovna Kosova¹

¹Department of Pharmaceutical Management and Economics, Peoplesâ€™ Friendship University of Russia, Miklukho-Maklaya St, 8k2, Moscow 117198, Russia; ²Faculty of Medicine, Can Tho University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Nguyen Van Cu St, 179, Can Tho 902490, Vietnam.

For correspondence:- Van De Tran Email: vandepro@gmail.com

Accepted: 13 January 2019 Published: 28 February 2019

Citation: De Tran V, Dorofeeva VV, Loskutova EE, Lagutkina TP, Kosova IV. Factors influencing community pharmacists recommendation of over-the-counter medications in four Vietnam cities. Trop J Pharm Res 2019; 18(2):421-427 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v18i2.29

© 2019 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To determine the factors influencing the recommendation of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines to patients by community pharmacists in Vietnam.

Methods: The study was conducted at community pharmacies in Vietnam, from June 10 to October 30, 2017. A final data set for analysis of 422 questionnaires was completed by community pharmacists from four different cities in Vietnam. Exploratory factor analysis was used to determine potential factors underlying a set of 20 questions related to the research topic. The association among the obtained factors and between the obtained factors and the pharmacists’ demographics were determined by applying the Mann-Whitney U test and the Kruskal-Wallis test.

Results: Using factor analysis the current study identified five factors, accounting for 61.53 % of the variance of the study, including customer, economic, professional, brand, and product. The product factor was found to have the most significant influence on pharmacists’ recommendation of all the factors (p < 0.001).

Conclusion: There are five major factors influencing the decision-making process for the selection of OTC medicines by community pharmacists in Vietnam. These findings could be useful for pharmaceutical firms in the adaptation of product development and pharmaceutical marketing.

Keywords: Community pharmacist, Over-the-counter medicine, Exploratory factor analysis, Medicine recommendation