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Communication
skills,
Motivations
and Ethics
Alaa Fadhel Hassan(MSc. Pharm)
Drug Information Centre
Al-Mahmoudiya general hospital

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Communication skills
 Effective communication skills among healthcare
professions & patients are the corner stone of medical
practice, it has been positively associated with pt.
ability to follow medical &/ medication
recommendations, pt. satisfaction and thus promoting
better outcomes like disease prevention, treatment,
better health & wellbeing
 For an effective communication skills, pharmacist need
to focus on special considerations of both verbal &
written skills with both healthcare professionals/team &
recipient (i.e. patients)

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Communication skills
with other healthcare professions/team
 Interactions should be cooperative, collaborative,
communicative, respectful, assertive and not aggressive
 Demonstrates skills in negotiation, conflict management,
consensus building, & defuses negative reactions
 Demonstrates advocacy for the patient.
 Effectively recommends or communicates patients’
regimens and associated monitoring plans to relevant
members of the team so creates an atmosphere of
collaboration
 Demonstrate expertise conveyed - communication
 Demonstrates understanding of perspectives of various
health care professionals

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Communication skills
with with recipient (patients, their
companions & public)
 Interactions should be respectful and collaborative
 Shows empathy.
 Empowers patients to take responsibility for their
health
 Demonstrates religious/cultural competence
 Presentation of recommendation approves the patient’s
right to refuse treatment (If patient refuses treatment,
the pharmacist should exhibits responsible
professional behavior)
 Demonstrate appropriate collaboration, i.e. involve the
patient in the design of the treatment plans

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Communication skills
written communication
 Demonstrate easy, understandable and free of errors writing
 Demonstrates comprehensive understanding of the topic
(treatment plan documentation &/ medical studies or research)
 Notes appropriate citations and references, create own work &
avoid plagiarism (medical studies or research)
 Includes critical evaluation of the literature and advancement
in knowledge or summary of what is currently known on the
topic (medical studies or research)
 Develops and uses tables, graphs, and figures to enhance
reader’s understanding of the topic when appropriate (medical
studies or research)
 Demonstrate the appropriate writing level for the reader (e.g.,
physicians, pharmacists, other health care professionals, &/
recipients like patients, companion & public)

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Motivations
 Motivation is the cornerstone of good practicing &
performance, psychologist described motivational
theories, including Self-determination Theory (SDT); 1 of
the major theories affect healthcare profession life
 SDT “describes motivation as dynamic and dependent on
three basic psychological needs (BPNs), i.e., autonomy
(experiencing a sense of volition), competence (feeling
capable of achieving targeted outcomes) and relatedness
(feeling connected to others)”
 Factors affect motivation: patient care, colleagues team
work, work environment, technical issues, organizational
and administrative tasks, job content & satisfaction and
finally financial benefits

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Motivations - Classification
 Autonomous: based on personal endorsement, it
comprises identified regulation and intrinsic. Its related
with “better performance, more positive well-being and
greater resilience”
 Controlled: based on internal/external stress & &
rewarding environments, comprises external and
introjected extrinsic motivation (EM) . Controlled
motivation is related to personal-burnout i.e., reduced
fuel & is not the desired motivation
 Amotivation: is the complete absence of motivation or
aim/ purpose

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Motivations
personal, pharmacy enterprise &
own practice improvement
 Identify self-empowering aspects (knowledge, values, qualities,
skills, and behaviors), developing professional skills via efficient
self-evaluation (accurate, criteria-based assessments of one’s own
ability to perform practice tasks) to achieve, employ constructive
feedback from others, demonstrate continuous medical education
for self development (reflect, plan, act, evaluate, record/review)
 Search for accessible learning opportunities when performance
does not meet expectations; demonstrate efficient work-quality &
time-investment improving skills, sets genuine goals/ aim to
achieve, maintain a healthy work-life balance, take advance of
academic qualification certificates & association memberships
activities & keep on organizational and departmental policies and
procedures
 Is well prepared to fulfill responsibilities (e.g., patient care, project,
management, meetings)

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Ethics – Clinical Pharmacist
 Demonstrate a covenantal, "fiducial" relationship with
their patients, that is based on the patient trust in return to
the clinical pharmacist commitment to perform the best to
their patients whether in individual or public
 Demonstrate the traits of professionalism: responsibility,
commitment to excellence, respect, honesty and integrity,
care and compassion
 Gives priority to patient care activities, prospective
therapeutic planning, routinely complete each step of
therapeutic management process, follow up therapeutic
related issues & outcome to achieve satisfactory
management plan
 Help patients achieving their management in a safe,
efficient, and economically suitable cost, also distinguish
patient compliance issues for proper modification

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The International Pharmaceutical
Federation (FIP) Statement of Pharmacy
Ethics
“Throughout its history, the profession of pharmacy has
served humanity well around the globe. Although pharmacy
has great potential for extending its record of service, it
faces many obstacles in attempting to do so, not the least of
which are challenges related to professional ethics and
autonomy. Pharmacy cannot achieve its full potential, and
patients will not benefit from that potential, unless
pharmacists are committed to the highest standards of
professional conduct and have sufficient autonomy to serve
patients’ best interests. In explicating the most important
dimensions of this issue, this report reinforces FIP’s long-
standing support of ethical principles, and it suggests the
need for FIP to also strongly advocate for a sufficient
measure of pharmacist autonomy in all sectors of the
profession”

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The American Society of Health-System
Pharmacists (ASHP) Code of Ethics
 Respects the covenantal relationship between the patient
and pharmacist
 Promotes the good of every patient in a caring,
compassionate, and confidential manner
 Respects the autonomy and dignity of each patient
 Acts with honesty and integrity in professional
relationships
 Maintains professional competence
 Respects the values and abilities of colleagues and other
health professionals
 Serves individual, community, and societal needs & seeks
justice in the distribution of health resources.

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References
• Pharmacy Department. Clinical Pharmacy Section. Clinical Pharmacist Standard of Practice 2022
• Jessica Mitchell, Amy Doten, PGY1 Pharmacy Residency Manual 2022-2023 US Department of
Veterans Affairs https://www.va.gov/files/2023-
02/PGY1%20Pharmacy%20Residency%20Manual%2022-23%20Revised.pdf
• Jalal Z, Cox A, Goel N, Vaitha N, King K, Ward J. Communications Skills in the Pharmacy Profession:
A Cross Sectional Survey of UK Registered Pharmacists and Pharmacy Educators. Pharmacy
(Basel). 2018 Dec 12;6(4):132. doi: 10.3390/pharmacy6040132. PMID: 30545072; PMCID: PMC6306767.
• International Pharmaceutical Federation. Professional ethics in pharmacy. 2021
https://www.fip.org/activities-priorityareas-professionalethics
• International Pharmaceutical Federation. REFERENCE DOCUMENT Pharmacist Ethics and
Professional Autonomy: Imperatives for Keeping Pharmacy Aligned with the Public Interest
https://www.fip.org/file/1368
• Crafford L, Wouters A, Bronkhorst E, Gous AGS, Kusurkar RA. Exploring Factors Associated With
the Motivation of Clinical Pharmacists: A Focus on the South African Context. Front Med
(Lausanne). 2021 Nov 23;8:747348. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2021.747348. PMID: 34888322; PMCID:
PMC8650006.
• Hawkins, B. (Eds.). (2019). "Code of Ethics for Pharmacists". In Best Practices. Bethesda MD, USA:
American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. Retrieved May 9, 2023, from
https://doi.org/10.37573/9781585286560.095 https://www.ashp.org/-/media/assets/policy-
guidelines/docs/endorsed-documents/code-of-ethics-for-
pharmacists.ashx#:~:text=Interpretation%3AA%20pharmacist%20has%20a,the%20best%20interests
%20of%20patients