An investigation on safety climate for preventing dispensing errors in community pharmacies

We investigated consciousness of the prevention of dispensing errors with the pharmacists and clerical staffs which work in community pharmacies and analyzed the structure of those subconscious to examine preventive measures of dispensing errors. Questionnaire survey was performed for all pharmacists and clerical staffs working in community pharmacies where each is affiliated with four pharmacy groups. The questionnaire consisted of 38 questions about "atmospheres for the prevention of dispensing errors" in the pharmacy along their attributions. And data were analyzed by occupation to confirm the difference. As a result of factor analysis, five factors such as "the posture of the boss", "information exchange", "the order of the pharmacy" were extracted from the pharmacists. Moreover, in the case of the clerical staffs, five similar factors have been extracted besides "a sense of responsibility to duties" replaced "the order of the pharmacy". As a result of structural equation modeling, the pass model with high goodness of fit to which "measures for dispensing error prevention" and "consciousness to the dispensing error of a pharmacy" were assumed to be a subordinate concept respectively by each occupational category. It became clear that a suggestion of the concrete preventive measures drafting was provided even from the investigation of the consciousness level.