Physicians’ attitudes and perceived barriers toward ward-based clinical pharmacist in hospital settings: Responses from a national survey

Clinical pharmacy services CPSs are still in their infancy in Yemen. Furthermore, pharmacists are not members of a multidisciplinary healthcare team, and their responsibilities are limited to drug dispensing and marketing. Thus, this study investigates physicians’ attitudes and perceived obstacles toward clinical pharmacists working in hospitals’ medical wards. A descriptive observational study was carried out using a validated self-administrated bilingual questionnaire. The study’s questionnaire was conducted among physicians in three teaching hospitals. Those hospitals were at the front to establish clinical pharmacy units and embrace clinical pharmacy services. Sixty-five responses were included. our data results indicated that physicians believed the most contributions for clinical pharmacists to improve patient care was “Attend medical rounds” 70.8%, followed by “Order review”. About 75% of physicians showed positive attitudes toward the clinical pharmacist role. However, more than 70% of physicians thought that clinical pharmacists should leave patient care to other healthcare members and care about drug products. There were Nine potential barriers out of 18 barriers were identified. Not enough clinical pharmacist staff working in the health center was considered as the top perceived barrier 83.1%; followed by clinical pharmacist responsibilities were not clearly defined”, and “clinical pharmacist recommendations are not properly documented”. In terms of enhancing physicians’ general attitudes and overcoming reported barriers. Strategies to expand clinical pharmacy services in Yemen should be emphasized on both, protocols should be established to outline how clinical pharmacists and physicians should collaborate besides, inter-professional collaboration relations are needed to be developed to overcome resistance and raise knowledge and awareness of CPS adoption among the healthcare team members.