Quality of Pharmacy Services in Government Hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Quality of pharmaceutical services can be measured at the levels of the structure, process and outcome. Although quality assessments of pharmaceutical services are common in many parts of the world, there is limited information on the quality of hospital pharmacy services in Ethiopia. This study attempted to assess the structural and process aspects of pharmaceutical services in hospitals in Addis Ababa. A  descriptive cross sectional survey of the pharmacy units of selected hospitals in Addis Ababa was conducted between August and December, 2009 using mixed method (qualitative and quantitative). A total of nineteen pharmacy units in the six hospitals were studied for structural quality. Deficiencies were observed with most of the structural aspects. Simple dispensing aids like tablet counting tray were absent in 8 (42.1%) of the pharmacy units and all had inadequate space for different purposes especially for storage of pharmaceuticals. The documentation and implementation of therapeutic objectives and monitoring plan aspects of pharmaceutical care were the most underperformed domains by the pharmacy professionals. The majority of pharmacy professionals (68.6%) never participated in ward rounds and the major reason for this was reported to be absence of in-built system in the hospital for the involvement of pharmacists in ward rounds. This study generally showed that there is a low level of quality of pharmacy services in the studied hospitals with respect to the availability of important materials, space and the involvement of pharmacy professionals in pharmaceutical care.

Keywords: quality, pharmaceutical care, government hospitals, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia