Ethical cases on Pharmacy Profession Practice in Thailand during A.D. 1995 to 2015

Abstract

Background: Code of ethics for the pharmacy profession was established to enforce all pharmacists to abide by a rule for a good pharmacy professional practice. Objective: to study the ethical problems, related to the pharmacy profession practice, and to present the guidelines for developing codes of ethics for the pharmacy profession in Thailand. Materials and Methods: the secondary data of ethical cases on pharmacy profession practice were collected. The in-depth interview of 10 experts involving ethical cases and ethical teaching was used to determine the guideline for developing code of ethics for the pharmacy profession in Thailand. Results: considering adjudged 526 ethical cases since A.D. 1995-2015, the results showed that 93% of all cases occurred in the drugstores, and 82.9% occurred while the licensed pharmacists were on their duty. The accused/alleged pharmacy professionals tend to offend against the Pharmacy Council’s Code of Ethics for the Pharmacy Profession, B.E. 2538, No. 6, for failing to maintain the standard of Pharmacy Profession at the highest level (96.8%), No.1, illegitimacy against country’s law (95.1%), and No.2, behaving or acting to destroy the dignity of profession (90.1%).  The factors related to the 3 mentioned ethical offenses, are pharmacist’s license number, alma mater, scene, and the role of accused/alleged pharmacists at the scene (p-value < 0.05). Conclusions: suggestions for solving ethical problems in pharmacy profession are 1) to cultivate ethical behavior for pharmacy students, 2) to set up the ethics as a regulation and to promote ethics as a main policy of the Pharmacy council of Thailand, 3) to strictly enforce the use of pharmacy profession ethics, and 4) to develop the monitoring and checking systems for the professional practice of pharmacists.

Keywords: ethical case, ethics, pharmacy profession practice, pharmacist