Examination of psychosocial predictors of Chinese hospital pharmacists' intention to provide clinical pharmacy services using the theory of planned behaviour: a cross-sectional questionnaire study

Objectives: Main study aim was as follows: (1) to explore the usefulness of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model in predicting Chinese hospital pharmacists' intention to provide clinical pharmacy services (CPSs), including auxiliary CPSs and core CPSs; (2) to identify the main factors affecting the Chinese hospital pharmacists' intention to provide core CPSs based on TPB quantitatively. Design: Cross-sectional questionnaire study. Setting: The study was conducted in 22 general hospitals in seven cities located in the eastern and western part of China. Participants: 416 hospital pharmacists (292 (70.2%) female) entered and completed the study. Primary and secondary outcome measures: Quantitative responses with hospital pharmacists' intention, attitude, subjective norms (SNs) and perceived behavioural control (PBC) over provision of CPSs and their past behaviour (PB)-related CPSs. Results: The structural equation model analysis found that attitude (p= 0.0079, beta= 0.12), SN (p= 0.038, beta= 0.10) and the pharmacists' intention to provide auxiliary CPSs (p= 0.0001, beta= 0.63) significantly predicted of their intention to provide core CPSs, accounting for 54.0% of its variance. Attitude (p= 0.0001, beta= 0.35), PBC (p= 0.0182, beta= 0.12) and PB (p= 0.0009, beta= 0.15) are significant predictors of pharmacists' intention, accounting for 21% of the variance in pharmacists' intention to provide auxiliary CPSs. Conclusions: The TPB with the addition of PB is a useful framework for predicting pharmacists' intention to provide CPSs in Chinese hospital care context. Strategies to improve hospital pharmacists' intention to provide CPSs should focus on helping the individuals related medical care see the value of CPSs, altering their perception of social pressure towards core CPSs and the removal of obstacles that impede the translation of intentions into behaviour.