Exploring communication challenges with children and parents among pharmacists in Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study.

Objectives: To identify trends and challenges in pharmacists' communication with pediatric patients in Saudi Arabia. It also studies the potential factors affecting their overall performance.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 170 pharmacists working in different healthcare settings in Saudi Arabia was carried out. A novel comprehensive 38-item survey questionnaire was utilized. The questionnaire comprised 2 main sections: demographic data and potential influencing factors and communication skills with children. The communication domain assessed the degree to which the pharmacist could communicate with a child in 7 main areas. Comparisons of communication performance were carried out by Chi-square tests, and associations with 24 factors were determined by logistic regression analyses.

Results: Approximately 76% of pharmacists demonstrated unsatisfactory communication with children (p=8.47×10^-10). Approximately 91% of pharmacists depended on speaking to parents rather than directly talking to children, even when present (p=7.791×10^-26). In addition, although 88.23% of pharmacists expressed high confidence in their communication skills (p=9.899×10^-24), their actual performance with children in different age groups showed that 63.52% performed poorly, while only 36.46% demonstrated good performance (p=4.2×10^-4). Factors which might be associated with pharmacists' performance were identified.

Conclusion: Pharmacists in Saudi Arabia face significant challenges in communicating with pediatric patients. Targeted training is needed to improve communication skills, medication adherence, and children's health outcomes.