Analysis Of The Professional Satisfaction Of Pharmacists In Bratislava

: A pharmacist is an expert on medications. At the same time as the most accessible health care provider, the pharmacist fulfills an important social mission. For a pharmacist, work satisfaction plays an important role in several aspects of his practice in a pharmacy. Our primary goal was to conduct a local analysis with the purpose of testing the proposed questionnaire evaluating various dimensions of the professional satisfaction of pharmacists. Our secondary goals were as follows: to analyze individual dimensions of pharmacists’ professional satisfaction, to assess the quality of life in the context of the pharmacists’ professional satisfaction and to analyze the impact of selected characteristics (age, location of the pharmacy) on the pharmacists’ quality of life. The study is based on a questionnaire survey among pharmacists in Bratislava from July to September 2016. Data were collected in person. Respondents were randomly selected from community pharmacies., Equal number of respondents were selected from three different types of pharmacies: a) public pharmacy or its branch in a medical facility or a health centre b) public pharmacy or its branch in a shopping centre c) public pharmacy or its branch in a residential housing development. The results of the study show that the professional satisfaction of pharmacists in Bratislava is evaluated positively. Out of all 27 questions of the questionnaire, only three were evaluated negatively. The analysis points out that pharmacists are dissatisfied with the conditions in the workplace, regulation and legal responsibilities stemming from the profession of a pharmacist, healthcare system, and health insurance companies. The majority of the pharmacists characterized their state of mind on the job as concentrated. Older respondents were more tired and less energized. With regards to the location of a pharmacy, respondents that work in pharmacies located in residential housing developments feel the most concentrated. The knowledge of needs and problems of the profession is the essential precondition for its continued successful development, and its position in current as well as future European and Slovak healthcare systems. Until now, the quality of the professional life of pharmacists has not become a subject of systematic research and evaluation in Slovakia. Our study showed that the professional satisfaction of pharmacists in Bratislava is evaluated positively.