Indigenous and Immigrant Populations’ Use and Experience of Community Pharmacies in New Zealand

We sought to identify what services indigenous (Maori) and immigrant populations use pharmacies for, and how long pharmacy
staff spend interacting with them, as longer interactions are associated with better quality care. We review literature on
counseling in pharmacy, and interaction length as an indicator of counseling quality. 1,086 interactions were discretely observed
in 36 pharmacies in 5 cities around New Zealand. Maori or Pacific people, along with men, were more likely to treat pharmacies
as prescription ‘depots’, being less likely to buy over-the-counter or pharmacist only medicines (ORs: 0.25–0.72). However,
the influence of demographic factors on interaction length was small (|B|s < 7.7 s). The weak effect of ethnicity on interaction length suggests that pharmacies are providing advice of relatively
consistent quality to different population groups. Possible barriers to use of pharmacies for primary healthcare, including
over-the-counter medicines in Maori and Pacific people are discussed.