Recently, there has been an increased interest in broadening community pharmacists' functions toward playing a greater role in public health [1]. Community pharmacies are often considered an ideal site for credible counseling for a large segment of the population because pharmacists are accessible, have frequent contact with the public, have extended opening hours, and are widely distributed geographically [1–3]. Given the increasing stresses on the health care system due to an aging population and the consequent rise in the prevalence and incidence of chronic diseases, the shift toward a wider public-health role for pharmacists should be accentuated.

Health-promotion and preventive services refer to public health services, which relate to the improvement of the general health of the population through interventions aiming at promoting health and wellbeing (e.g. nutrition, physical activity), preventing diseases (e.g. smoking cessation, immunization, travel health), identifying ill individuals (e.g. screening and case finding) and maintaining health of those with chronic conditions (e.g. diabetes, hypertension) [4, 5]. Public health interventions act on factors influencing the health of the population as a whole or subgroups of this population rather than separate individuals, and generally take place before the onset of health problems [4]. Throughout this paper, clinical services such as medication reviews were not considered as health-promotion or preventive services since they target specific individuals.

Studies from many countries have demonstrated the benefits of pharmacy services on a wide range of important public-health issues [5]: notably in smoking cessation [6, 7], diabetes [8, 9], hypertension [9, 10], dyslipidemia [9], contraception [11], osteoporosis [12–14], and immunization [15, 16]. A recent Cochrane review confirmed the importance of the pharmacist's role in therapeutic management and patient counseling [17]. The broader involvement of community pharmacists is thus deemed a valuable option in addressing several public-health issues. In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, pharmacists are integrated into public-health programs [18]. In contrast, Quebec's public-health program does not stress the role of pharmacists as primary-care providers in this area [4].

To date, little information has been gathered in Canada on community pharmacists' perceptions of their role in health promotion and prevention. However, such data are essential to the development of public-health programs in community pharmacy. In this study, we documented the perceptions of community pharmacists in urban and semi-urban areas regarding their ideal and actual levels of involvement in the provision of health-promotion and preventive services, as well as the barriers that limit their involvement.

Of the 1,250 pharmacists selected, eight did not work in community pharmacy. Twelve questionnaires were returned undelivered because the address was wrong. Following the first questionnaire mailing, we were informed that one pharmacist had retired, one was on maternity leave, and one declined (verbally) to take part. Ultimately, 577 completed questionnaires were returned. However, six were returned by non-eligible pharmacists (four did not work in community pharmacy, and two were not working in a traditional community pharmacy), for a total of 571 questionnaires returned out of 1,234 eligible pharmacists (response rate: 46.3%). More specifically, 249 questionnaires (43.6%) were received after the first questionnaire mailing, 114 (20.0%) after the postcard mailing, 149 (26.1%) after the second questionnaire mailing, and 59 (10.3%) after the third questionnaire mailing. The response rates for individual questions ranged from 87% to 100%, and 99% of questions had a response rate over 90%.

As reported in Figure 1 the main barriers to providing health-promotion and preventive services in their current practice were lack of time (86.1%), lack of coordination with other health care professionals (61.1%), lack of staff or resources (57.2%), lack of financial compensation (50.8%), and lack of clinical tools (45.5%). Six pharmacists also indicated that their limited prescription rights and the lack of collective prescriptions further hampered their involvement in prevention.

^aMore than one item could be checked.

^bOther includes limited prescription rights for pharmacists and lack of collective prescriptions (n = 6); patients are often in a rush and don't have time for prevention activities (n = 3); patients are not "open" to change (n = 3); too many technical tasks performed by the pharmacist (n = 2); patients do not think of pharmacists for prevention activities (n = 2); no standardized practice model (n = 2); lack of access to lab-test results and other patient information (n = 2); pharmacists are overworked (n = 2); nurses already perform some of these activities (n = 2); lack of a closed office at the pharmacy (n = 1); low uptake of pharmacist's suggestions by physicians (n = 1); home visits are expensive (n = 1); pharmacy owners not often present at the pharmacy (n = 1); pharmacist shortage (n = 1); patients don't like to be "criticized" about their lifestyle (n = 1); relief pharmacists don't know the pharmacy's patients very well (n = 1); the logistics of implementation in general (n = 1); most of the pharmacy's patients are not regular patients (n = 1); lack of patient knowledge about the benefits of prevention (n = 1); lack of tools for patients (n = 1); pharmacy's patients do not need preventive activities because they are already educated about the subject (n = 1); lack of external resources to which patients can be referred (n = 1); lack of budget for prevention activities at the pharmacy (n = 1); lack of competent and stable staff (n = 1); lack of interest by pharmacy owners (n = 1); and the topic of prevention is very broad, so pharmacists provide counseling on a little bit of everything but about nothing in depth (n = 1).

Community pharmacists in Montreal (Quebec, Canada) and surrounding areas perceive their potential role in health promotion and prevention as very significant, particularly in smoking cessation, screening for hypertension, diabetes and dyslipidemia, and counseling on sexual health. However, there is a wide gap between their ideal and actual levels of involvement. Most pharmacists believe they should be very involved in screening for hypertension (81.8%), diabetes (76.0%) and dyslipidemia (56.9%); in fact, though, only a minority is very involved (44.5%, 34.8% and 6.5%, respectively). Health-promotion and preventive services in pharmacy are provided largely by pharmacists and, to a lesser extent, by nurses and technical assistants. In fact, more than half of surveyed pharmacists reported that a nurse was present in their pharmacy. The services consist mainly of distributing written information, providing counseling when dispensing medications and referring patients to external resources. When offered, such services are provided relatively often and usually take 10 minutes or less. There are several barriers that limit pharmacists' involvement in health promotion and prevention, including lack of time, lack of coordination with other health care professionals, lack of staff or resources, lack of financial compensation, and lack of clinical tools.

Similarly to the present study, the results of a cross-sectional mail survey of community pharmacists in British Columbia published in 1994 showed that pharmacists are mostly involved in activities directly related to the dispensing or selling of medications and have less intense involvement in health education and disease prevention [2]. A 1996 cross-sectional mail survey of community pharmacists practicing in the province of Quebec found that, although only few pharmacists reported routinely performing prevention activities, over 90% believed that integrating prevention into their practices was important [1]. Similarly, a Web-based survey of pharmacists across Canada reported that, although pharmacists currently spend most of their time on dispensing duties, over 60% believed it was time to assume new responsibilities, and more than 70% wanted to expand their roles in various fields including public health outreach (e.g. working with communities and patients to focus on health promotion, disease prevention and chronic disease management) within five years [20]. Finally, a recent systematic review on the beliefs and attitudes of pharmacists regarding pharmaceutical public health showed that, although most view public-health services as important and part of their role, various organizational barriers limit their involvement [21]. These results confirm the profession's widespread acceptance of community pharmacists' changing role from traditional dispensing duties to greater involvement in health promotion and prevention and its understanding of the importance of providing these services.

Evidently, pharmacists and the population at large would welcome greater involvement of community pharmacies in health-promotion and preventive services [21, 22]. Our results suggest that the development of future public-health programs in community pharmacy should focus on the continuity of care, maximizing the expertise of other health care professionals who may be present in the pharmacy, and overcoming organizational barriers. Such programs need to be well integrated within the primary-care system through effective communication and collaboration with other health care providers, and they should be supported by clinical tools, such as collective prescriptions, to optimize the contribution of pharmacists.

In a study evaluating the impact of a community pharmacy-based smoking cessation program in Northern Ireland, the involvement of pharmacies was especially low: only 19% of recruited pharmacies enrolled the required number of patients to participate in the study [7]. This is in line with the results of the present study, suggesting that although pharmacists may envision an ideal level of involvement in health-promotion and preventive services, this vision is often not translated into their actual practice. In formal clinical trials where the level of involvement of pharmacists in specific public-health activities may be considered as ideal, beneficial impacts have been identified, namely in the area of smoking cessation [6, 7], hypertension [9, 10], dyslipidemia [9], diabetes [8, 9], and sexual health [11]. Integrating primary-care pharmacists and pharmacies into public-health programs should be considered a valuable option for optimizing population health. It is therefore crucial to better understand the barriers and facilitators of greater involvement of pharmacists in public health activities.

Similarly again to our results, studies have identified key barriers to the involvement of community pharmacists in health promotion and prevention. They include the lack of time, insufficient human resources, difficult access to patients' physicians, lack of skills and/or instrumentation, lack of compensation for prevention acts, and lack of space [1, 23–25]. Other factors limiting the provision of such activities in current practice that were found in the literature but did not stand out in our study include the general public's lack of awareness of pharmacy's role in health promotion and prevention, lack of access to the full patient record, confidentiality concerns, and defensive or uncooperative patients [23–26]. It is therefore to be expected that overcoming these barriers will require reorganizing not only community-pharmacy practice but also the health care system in order to better integrate pharmacists into the provision of preventive services. This reorganization will doubtless require agreement, commitment and engagement by all pharmacy stakeholders in addition to financial investments.

Two studies have identified facilitators of practice change in community pharmacy [27, 28]. These factors included government policy; remuneration for service delivery; communication and teamwork; leadership; task delegation; external support or assistance; reorganization of the structure and function of the pharmacy; professional satisfaction or competitiveness; communication and collaboration with physicians; and patient expectations regarding the services to be offered. Future public-health programs in community pharmacy will also need to consider these factors in order to facilitate practice change.

This study has some limitations. No data were collected regarding non-respondents; it is therefore possible that the pharmacists who returned the completed questionnaire are more motivated or interested than the non-respondents are and that involvement in health promotion and prevention may thus have been overestimated. A social-desirability bias may also have contributed to overestimate the ideal and actual prevention practices. Finally, the length of the questionnaire may have contributed to reduce the response rate. Nonetheless, despite random sampling and the absence of any telephone contact, the response rate was relatively high. Moreover, comparison with statistics compiled by the OPQ on gender and pharmacist status showed that our sample was representative of community pharmacists working in Quebec.

In conclusion, community pharmacists strongly believe they should play a significant role in health promotion and prevention. However, given the many organizational barriers limiting their current public health activities, a wide gap exists between their ideal and actual levels of involvement.

Réseau québécois de recherche sur l'usage des médicaments (RQRUM) and Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de Laval