Abstract
Although community pharmacies normally provide health services to communities, they have never
been officially recognized as a primary care unit under any health security scheme. After the National
Health Security Scheme had been implemented in Thailand, efforts were made to test accredited pharmacies as part of a network within the scheme. In order to put a community pharmacy into the network, it is
essential to clarify the role and function of a community pharmacy as a primary care provider within the
network. Therefore, this study was aimed at projecting the role, function and activity of community pharmacies
from the viewpoint of community pharmacy experts, both from the private and government sectors.
The Delphi method was used by sending questionnaires to experts twice. Seventeen experts completed
the questionnaires twice. Levels of agreement were calculated as in the median, mode and
interquartile ranges. The results showed that the experts agreed that it was possible to have community
pharmacies play a role in treatment, health promotion and disease prevention in a community. The medians
of agreement levels were between 4 and 5 out of 5 on the Likert scale and the interquartile ranges were
narrow. With regard to the treatment role, a community pharmacy would have functions and activities in
dispensing drugs for common illnesses, refilling prescriptions for chronic diseases, and providing patients
with counseling. Regarding the health promotion and disease prevention role, a community pharmacy
would have functions and activities in screening for risk of chronic diseases, referring a high-risk
patient to physicians, promoting appropriate drug use, providing advice regarding nutrition and exercise,
campaigning for smoking cessation and reducing alcohol consumption, and coordinating with local
authorities to promote community health.
