Public and Community Pharmacist Opinions toward the Control Measure of Tramadol Drug Dispensing

Abstract

Background and objective:  According to tramadol drug abuse in Thailand, a policy for controlling distribution of tramadol has been announced since September 6th, 2013 by the Food and Drug Administration of Thailand. This study aimed to survey the opinions of public and community pharmacists on the control measure of tramadol dispensing.

Methods: Questionnaires were distributed for acquiring their opinions from April 1st to May 15th, 2014. The response rate of community pharmacists was 43% (373 returned mail questionnaires). While 342 questionnaires from the customers who want to purchase tramadol in 20 drugstores were collected.

Results: The results revealed that people who knew toward control measure of tramadol dispensing were 28.7%. In contrast, all of the community pharmacists knew the implementation of the policy. Results of opinion survey found that customers mostly agreed that tramadol should be dispensed by pharmacists (mean = 4.62). However, they disagreed with the prohibition of dispensing tramadol to the children who are below 17 years old (mean = 2.31). For community pharmacists opinion, they also mostly agreed that tramadol should be dispensed by pharmacists (mean = 4.75). However, they neither agree nor disagreed that tramadol should be dispensed to the patients with medical necessity only with the number of not more than 20 capsules per visit (mean = 2.40).

Conclusions: The community pharmacists agreed with the tramadol restriction policy while the customers were indifferent. In addition, both the customers and the community pharmacists fully agreed that tramadol should be dispensed by pharmacists with the mean score 4.62 and 4.75 respectively.