Researching Provider Perspectives on New Healthcare Services: A Case Study of Pharmacists’ Adoption of New Medicines Into Practice

This research utilized mixed methods to gain insight into community pharmacists’ adoption of new medicines into their practice. New medicines are being referred to as those medicinal products that were previously only available under prescription, which through legal reclassification are available for pharmacists to supply to the patients without a doctor’s prescription. Such legal reclassification of medicines aims to allow greater and convenient patient access to medicines, mostly for minor illnesses.

Prompted by the lack of high-quality previous literature, the aim of this project was to identify and explore the key factors associated with the adoption of new medicines into their practice. Findings would also be relevant in understanding pharmacists’ perspectives on wider community pharmacy services.

A range of methods were used including formal systematic review of peer-reviewed published literature, extensive review of policy documents of all the devolved UK Governments, qualitative focus groups and interviews with community pharmacists from four Scottish Health Boards, and finally, a cross-sectional survey of pharmacists from Scottish community pharmacies. The
theoretical framework of diffusion of innovations was adopted in design of the research and interpretation of research data.