Table 2.
Services provided by community pharmacists during COVID-19 pandemica
| Services provided by community pharmacists | Component | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| |||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |
| Counseling services to patients | 0.951 | ||||||
| Assessing and treating common acute diseases (e.g., malaria, cold, catarrh, sore throat) | 0.951 | ||||||
| Educating patients/clients on personal and environmental hygiene (e.g., hand hygiene) | 0.909 | ||||||
| Prescription refilling | 0.819 | ||||||
| Prescription screening for drug interaction and detection of ADR | 0.706 | ||||||
| Blood pressure monitoring | 0.879 | ||||||
| Point-of-care testing (e.g., blood glucose, cholesterol) | 0.819 | ||||||
| Tele-pharmacy and tele-medicine consulting | 0.715 | ||||||
| Home delivery services to vulnerable groups (e.g., elderly, patients with chronic diseases) | 0.601 | ||||||
| Reporting and referral of COVID-19 cases (e.g., risk assessment, triage) | 0.817 | ||||||
| Information centre for COVID-19 | 0.635 | ||||||
| Uninterrupted supply of medicines and PPEs (e.g., face masks, hand gloves, hand sanitizers) | 0.838 | ||||||
| Health education and promotion | 0.532 | ||||||
| Syndromic management of STIs | 0.795 | ||||||
| Assessing and treating minor soft tissue injuries | 0.660 | ||||||
| Immunization services | 0.562 | ||||||
a
Sixteen variables were considered and were analyzed individually using PCA. The PCA was carried out based on the varimax rotation method. Only factors having eigenvalue above one were considered significant and retained. The eigenvalues indicate that the first component provided the highest value. Items in bold indicate the identified major services provided by community pharmacists to their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. PCA=Principal component analysis, ADR=Adverse drug reactions, PPEs=Personal protective equipment, STIs=Sexually transmitted infections