Development of external validation tools for community pharmacy

Abstract

The process of validation is used in the field of analysis and in the development of questionnaires and measurement tools to demonstrate that the instrument or method under scrutiny measures what it purports to measure.1.2 Validation processes include an internal and an external component) The concept of validation was applied to the area of pharmacy practice to generate evidence-based data to confirm the effectiveness of the pharmacist in a community setting. In an earlier study five internal validation tools were developed to measure-the impact of the community pharmacist on patient care by evaluating the set- ting of the community pharmacy and by appraising the processes of dispensing, responding to symptoms and communicating with patients. These tools constituted an internal validation method.4 For the external validation process, tools had to be developed to scrutinise the impact of the community pharmacist on patient care as

perceived by others outside the pharmacy profession. The aims of this study were to develop external validation tools with which

to measure the importance given by consumers and other health professionals to the

intervention of the community pharmacist on patient care and to evaluate validity and reliability of the tools.