Relationship between availability of contraceptive products and pharmacists as information sources.

Objective: To describe the relationship between the availability and accessibility of contraceptives in Iowa pharmacies and the extent to which pharmacists act as an information source regarding contraceptives. Design: Descriptive, exploratory, nonexperimental study. Setting: Iowa in fall 2008. Participants: 282 pharmacists at Iowa community pharmacies. Intervention: Cross-sectional survey. Main outcome measures: Contraceptive availability score, contraceptive accessibility score, and total access score. Regression analyses tested the relationships between the pharmacist information source score and the contraceptive availability, accessibility, and total access scores, controlling for geography, ownership, staff size, and average number of prescriptions per day. Results: Significant positive relationships between the pharmacist information source score and product accessibility, product availability, and total access were observed. The relationship appeared to be driven primarily by product availability, and all were significantly influenced by pharmacy type. Significant negative relationships were found between product accessibility and independent/small chain pharmacies and mass merchandiser/grocery store pharmacies relative to large chain pharmacies. A significant negative relationship was found between independent/small chain pharmacies and the product availability score. Conclusion: Significant relationships were found between pharmacists' ability to act as sources of information for contraceptive products and the availability, accessibility, and overall access to contraceptives in the pharmacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]