Simulated patient methodology as a "gold standard" in community pharmacy practice: Response to criticism.

The simulated patient methodology (SPM) is considered the "gold standard" as covert participatory observation. SPM is attracting increasing interest for the investigation of community pharmacy practice; however, there is criticism that SPM can only show a small picture of everyday pharmacy practice and therefore has limited external validity. On the one hand, a certain design and application of the SPM goes hand in hand with an increase in external validity. Even if, on the other hand, this occurs at the expense of internal validity due to the trade-off situation, the justified criticism of the SPM for investigating community pharmacy practice can be countered.