Pharmacy employees’ involvement in safeguarding persons with dementia who use dietary supplements: Results from a survey of Norwegian pharmacies

Table 2 Pharmacy employees’ professional practice behaviors related to dietary supplements

	Pharmacists		Pharmacy technicians		Total		p-value
	n = 57		n = 48		n = 105
	n	%	n	%	n	%
Give information on adverse events and possible interactions^{a, b}							0.022
Yes	30	53	21	44	51	48
Sometimes	26	46	18	38	44	42
No	1	2	8	17	9	9
Ask customers about PD use when selling DS^{a, b}							0.021
Always	15	26	11	23	26	25
Sometimes^c	41	72	28	58	69	66
Depending on the customers’ health	9	16	0	0	9	9
Depending on the type of DS	32	56	28	58	60	57
Never	1	2	8	17	9	8
Ask customers about DS use when dispensing PD^{a, d}							0.002
Always	0	0	2	4	2	2
Sometimes	32	56	12	25	44	42
Never	24	42	33	69	57	54
Routinely check for interactions between DS and PD^{e, f}							0.409
Always	7	12	10	21	17	16
Sometimes^f	40	70	28	58	68	65
In certain patients groups	12	21	3	6	15	14
For certain DS	34	60	18	38	52	50
For certain PD	16	28	17	35	33	31
Never	10	18	7	15	17	16

DS dietary supplements, PD prescription drugs
Pharmacists include employees with bachelor’s or master’s degree in pharmacy. Pharmacy technicians include employees with other educational backgrounds, mainly pharmacy technicians (upper secondary school)
^aStatistics are from Fisher’s exact test. The answers always, sometimes and never are included
^bData for one employee are missing
^cRespondents who confirmed that they asked customers about PD when selling DS depending on the customers’ health or depending on the type of DS were merged into the category “Sometimes”
^d Data for two employees are missing
e Data for three employees are missing
^fStatistics are from the chi-square test
^gIt was possible to give more than one answer to this question. Respondents who confirmed that they checked for interactions in one or more of the following cases: certain patient groups, for certain DS or for certain PD, were merged into the category “Sometimes”
Significant comparisons are printed in bold