Jeroen van de Pol

124 Chapter 5.1 Participants who preferred CPS over convenience also deemed the availability of CPS more important than the availability of convenience (chi-square; p < 0.001). One of four participants who preferred convenience over CPS thought the availability of CPS was important (data not shown). Discussion This study suggests that the majority of participants (‘the general public’) prefers convenience over CPS from their community pharmacist (or community pharmacy, as some services may also be provided by pharmacy technicians). However, most participants rated the availability of CPS as more important than convenience. Participants who highly valued CPS were mostly older (p < 0.001), had more medicines in use (p < 0.001 based on univariate regression analysis) and had lower educational levels. Elderly patients who use more medicines placed the most value on the availability of CPS. With an ageing population and increasing numbers of home-dwelling elderly patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy, it is expected that the general public may put more value of the provision of CPS by the pharmacist. Participantswithhigher educational levelshada strongpreference for convenience, but they also thought that the availability of CPS was more important than convenience viewed from a societal perspective. This result is probably because these people might need less support than people with lower educational levels [23]. Previous studies have shown that people with low literacy skills find it difficult to interpret instructions on labels and information in leaflets [24, 25]. Also, people with low health literacy know significantly less about their condition [26]. The paradox between preferences for CPS and the importance of the availability of CPS is also illustrated by the fact that most participants who preferred convenience, such as short waiting times, concurrently perceived the community pharmacist as an important healthcare provider. These findings may be attributed to most of the general public having a light disease burden but also realizing the importance of more CPS for people in need, including their own potential future needs. Furthermore, regarding preferences and the importance of the availability of services, older participants tended to prefer CPS over convenience and deemed CPS availability more important. Moreover, the general public may regard the community pharmacist as a healthcare provider but may lack actual experiences and therefore expectations. And also miss the pharmacist-patient relationship to substantiate this claim [27,28]. Furthermore, although most members of the general public may regard