OBJECTIVES

: Responsiveness to non-therapeutic aspect of health care is considered a key characteristic of the health systems effectiveness. Based on the WHO framework, responsiveness is characterized by eight domains. Subsequent to physician’s offices, pharmacies have the most referring patients in Iran; therefore, pharmacies have an important role in the health system as well as responding to the non-therapeutic needs of patients. This study was aimed to examine the pharmaceutical system responsiveness to non-therapeutic needs of patients of outpatient pharmacies in Tehran, the capital of Iran.

METHODS

: The nature of study was explanatory descriptive cross-sectional and it was conducted in 2016. A random sampling was utilized to populate patients referring to community pharmacies in Tehran. The structured questionnaire method was used to collect the data. The sample size was calculated as 400 according to Cochran formula. The questioners were distributed according to the number of pharmacies in each district of Tehran. Finally, descriptive and inferential statistics were calculated using SPSS 24.

RESULTS

: The results showed that 10% of respondents rated responsiveness low, 55.3% intermediate and 34.8% high. The responsiveness status of pharmaceutical system in Tehran to relate non-pharmaceutical demands was rated at 84.3%. In this study, respondents gave the highest priority to receiving medical consultation in a private space. The results indicated that there was a negative and significant relationship between level of education and responsiveness. No significant difference between men and women was found.

CONCLUSIONS

: The results revealed that pharmaceutical system in Tehran is performing well, regarding responsiveness. however, there is still room to improve in some dimensions of responsiveness to ensure that provided services meet the expectations of patients.