Jeroen van de Pol

162 Chapter 6 Different methodological approaches within this thesis To answer the research objectives, different research methods were used. These techniques are not yet common practice in pharmacy practice research and are innovative within this field. For each research question, we chose the most suitable research technique. The different techniques and potential future applications of these techniques are discussed next. Work sampling using a smartphone application Work sampling is a technique to study time utilization as chapters 2.1 and 2.2 describe. This technique has been previously used within commercial environments, such as factories, to understand time-utilization by factory workers and seek ways to increase efficiency. Within this study, a self-reporting work sampling in which pharmacists had to register their own daily activities was used. This type of methodology could be used by professional bodies to track whether a shift in time-utilization has occurred in community pharmacy practice (or other professions) over time or whether more has to be done to implement CPS in daily community pharmacy practice. This methodology can also provide insights into time-utilization regarding specific topics, such as the amount of time spent on handling medicine shortages and recalls. Insights into topics like these could provide a basis for discussion with different stakeholders on how to best support the profession in handling the workload accompanied by these topics. Furthermore, providing insights into one’s own time-utilization to community pharmacists provides them with the first step to optimize their time-utilization. These insights allow pharmacists to reflect on their current time-utilization and question whether it adheres to desired time-utilization. Q-methodology Q-methodology elicits priorities of different types of participants within a variety of subjects. Due to the exact number of statements (or for this study, activities), when matching the number of cells within the Q-grid, participants have to carefully consider each activity’s priority. Because of this consideration, we believe that Q-methodology provides more insightful data than Likert scale questionnaires as the latter do not force participants to make trade-offs. Eliciting priorities within community pharmacy practice should be regularly performed by professional bodies. Community pharmacists priorities include time