“Why do you ask?” A study of questioning behaviour in community pharmacist-client consultations

Abstract

This article reports the results of an analysis of recorded community pharmacist-client interactions. The results showed that 98 per cent of all pharmacist questions asked were closed, over two thirds of which were of the Yes/No variety. Twenty four per cent were leading in nature and almost all of these were subtle leads. Pharmacists asked, on average, four questions per consultation as compared with a mean of 2.5 for clients. Only 2 per cent of all pharmacist questions addressed the psychosocial dimensions of practice, the vast majority being concerned with purely clinical matters. The findings are discussed within the context of a communication audit approach to community pharmacy practice, directed to effecting improvements in the quality of interviewing performance in pharmacist-client consultations.