Injection Drug Users’ Perspectives on Placing HIV Prevention and Other Clinical Services in Pharmacy Settings

In their role as a source of sterile syringes, pharmacies are ideally situated to provide additional services to injection drug users (IDUs). Expanding pharmacy services to IDUs may address the low utilization rates of healthcare services among this population. This qualitative study of active IDUs in San Francisco explored perspectives on proposed health services and interventions offered in pharmacy settings, as well as facilitators and barriers to service delivery. Eleven active IDUs participated in one-on-one semistructured interviews at a community field site and at a local syringe exchange site between February and May 2010. Results revealed that most had reservations about expanding services to pharmacy settings, with reasons ranging from concerns about anonymity to feeling that San Francisco already offers the proposed services in other venues. Of the proposed health services, this group of IDUs prioritized syringe access and disposal, clinical testing and vaccinations, and provision of methadone. Pharmacists’ and pharmacy staff’s attitudes were identified as a major barrier to IDUs’ comfort with accessing services. The findings suggest that although IDUs would like to see some additional services offered within pharmacy settings, this is contingent upon pharmacists and their staff receiving professional development trainings that cultivate sensitivity towards the needs and experiences of IDUs.