Prevalence of Compounding in Independent Community Pharmacy Practice

To determine the extent of prescription compounding in independent community pharmacies and identify factors that influence the decision of independent pharmacists whether to provide compounding services. Cross-sectional survey. Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa. 370 pharmacists in charge. Anonymous questionnaire mailed in January 2005. Percentage of pharmacies that provide compounding; percentage of dispensed prescriptions that require compounding; factors contributing to decisions whether to provide compounding service. Overall, 94% of respondent pharmacies provided compounding services at the time of this survey. Prescriptions that required compounding represented less than 1% of total prescriptions for the majority (58.3%) of respondents. The main reasons for the decision to provide compounding service were wanting to provide full pharmaceutical care to patients (73.8% of compounders) and responding to requests by prescribers (48.7%). Pharmacies that did not provide compounding service cited the main reason as not receiving prescriptions that required compounding (63.6% of noncompounders). Compounding remains a component of pharmacy practice in the independent community setting. Prescriptions that required compounding represented 2.3% of all prescriptions dispensed by compounding pharmacies.