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Pharmacy Technicians’ Willingness to Perform Emerging Tasks in Community Practice
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Pharmacy Technicians’ Willingness to Perform Emerging Tasks in Community Practice

William R. Doucette and Jon C. Schommer
Pharmacy, Vol.6(4), p.113
10/12/2018
DOI: 10.3390/pharmacy6040113
PMCID: PMC6306904
PMID: 30322033
url
https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy6040113View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

New tasks are being developed for pharmacy technicians in community practice. The objectives of this study were to (1) assess the willingness of community pharmacy technicians to perform new tasks, and (2) to identify factors affecting technicians in assuming new tasks in community pharmacy practice. An online survey asked about the respondent characteristics, involvement in pharmacy technician tasks, willingness to perform emerging pharmacy technician tasks, and influences on pharmacy technicians’ performance of emerging tasks. Descriptive statistics were calculated for all items. A total of 639 usable surveys from community pharmacy technicians were used in the analyses. The respondents reported a mean of 11.5 years working as a pharmacy technician, with 79.2% working full time. Technicians reported high willingness to perform four emerging tasks, moderate willingness for six tasks, and low willingness to perform two tasks. The low willingness tasks were administering a vaccination and drawing a blood sample with a finger stick. Four workplace influences on willingness to perform emerging tasks were insufficient staffing, insufficient time to complete additional tasks, employers not classifying technicians based on specialized skills, and usually feeling stress at work. It appears likely that pharmacy technicians will be willing to perform the new tasks needed to support the emerging patient care services in community pharmacies.
community pharmacy pharmacy technician services willingness

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