Effects of Training of Pharmacists in Japan on Reasonable Accommodations for People with Intellectual Disabilities

Masaki Shoji (), Rintaro Imafuku, Mei Mizomoto and Mitsuko Onda
Additional contact information
Masaki Shoji: Department of Social and Administrative Pharmacy, Osaka Medical and Pharmaceutical University, Osaka 569-1094, Japan
Rintaro Imafuku: Nursing Research Promotion Center, Graduate School of Nursing, Nagoya City University, Nagoya 467-8601, Japan
Mei Mizomoto: SHINTANI Clinic of Psychosomatic Medicine, Kyoto 611-0031, Japan
Mitsuko Onda: Department of Social and Administrative Pharmacy, Osaka Medical and Pharmaceutical University, Osaka 569-1094, Japan

Disabilities, 2025, vol. 5, issue 2, 1-12

Abstract: With the enforcement of the Act for Eliminating Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities, the provision of reasonable accommodations in pharmacies has become mandatory in Japan. This study aimed to develop and validate the effectiveness of a training program to improve pharmacists’ ability to assist people with intellectual disabilities. The educational staff of one chain pharmacy company announced the program, and pharmacists at this company were invited to participate in the program. A 90 min online training was conducted with 15 pharmacists. The session included a lecture on reasonable accommodations and small group discussions (SGD). Before and after the training, participants answered an online survey about 1. Their basic attributes (number of years of experience and awareness of reasonable accommodations and constructive dialogue); 2. Their confidence in providing medication guidance to people with intellectual disabilities (10-point scale); and 3. Possible accommodations that could be provided by pharmacies. Training resulted in an increase in the average score for question 2 from 3.93 to 5.87. In addition, an increase in the number of keywords within the free-text descriptions and in the number of co-occurrences within the responses of mentions of possible accommodations in pharmacies was observed. Despite the shortness of the training, it changed the participants’ awareness about accommodations for people with intellectual disabilities. Further study is needed to enhance the content and evaluate changes in practice.

Keywords: intellectual disability; pharmacist; communication; reasonable accommodation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7272/5/2/43/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7272/5/2/43/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jdisab:v:5:y:2025:i:2:p:43-:d:1642837

Access Statistics for this article

Disabilities is currently edited by Ms. Cici Zhou

More articles in Disabilities from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().