Jeroen van de Pol

117 5 How does the general public balance convenience and cognitive pharmaceutical services Population and questionnaire design A randomsample of 1,500members from the Dutch Healthcare Consumer Panel who indicated a preference for an online questionnaire was invited to complete an online questionnaire on services provided in community pharmacies in the Netherlands. The questionnaire was developed based on a convenience sample of 18 studies identified in international literature (see supplementarymaterial). After the initial questionnaire was sent, panel members received two electronic reminders. Main outcomes Preferences regarding pharmacy services Participants had to rate their preferences for nine combinations of three factors related to convenience and three CPS-related services (Table 1). Participants could rate their preferences on a 4-point Likert scale (2, 1, 1, 2). A score of 2 indicated a high preference for a specific service over the other, whereas a score of 1 indicated a slight preference. For each individual participant, the cumulative score for convenience was subtracted from the cumulative score for CPS. This step created a final score per participant ranging from +18 to -18 in which positive scores reflected a preference for CPS and negative scores reflected a preference for convenience. Importance of availability of pharmacy services Participants rated the importance from a societal viewpoint of availability of 12 pharmacy services on a 4-point Likert scale (1, 2, 3, 4). Four services were convenience-related and eight services were CPS-related (Table 1). Per participant, average scores were obtained for both convenience and CPS, with 4 the most important and 1 the least important. The average score per participant for convenience-related activities were subtracted from the average score for CPS, giving a score ranging from -3, deeming convenience more important, to +3, deeming CPS more important.