Evaluation of Patient Assessment and Counseling of Over-the-counter Oral Contraceptives by Community Pharmacists in South Korea: A Mystery Shopper Study

Oral contraceptives (OCs) are readily available without a prescription in South Korea. We aimed to evaluate the quality of patient assessment and medication counseling of over-the-counter (OTC) OCs by community pharmacists in South Korea. This was a cross-sectional mystery shopper study, where trained mystery shoppers visited pharmacies and asked for an oral contraceptive for contraception purposes. A total of 54 pharmacies were visited. Majority of pharmacists(75.9%) conducted counseling of OTC OCs during the visit. Of the 24 evaluated medication counseling and patient assessment items, median of 3 (IQR 0.3 to 5) points were achieved and median counseling time lasted 22 (IQR 3.0 to 42.3) sec. Pharmacists spent more time on counseling of administration instructions and basic counseling points of the OC, but more detailed patient assessments, such as the presence of concurrent medications or drug allergies were conducted less often. Pharmacists in their 30s and 40s provided more information than those who were in their 50s and older, while no difference was observed when analyzed by pharmacists’ gender. There are room for improvements in patient assessment and counseling of OTC OCs by the community pharmacists and such improvements is imperative to ensure safe and efficacious use of OCs.