The objective of this study was to evaluate the perception of hospital pharmacists regarding quality of pharmaceutical care services\nin Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) Province, Pakistan, through qualitative as well as quantitative approach. For qualitative study, snow\nball sampling technique was used. In quantitative part, a cross-sectional study was conducted in 112 hospital pharmacists (out of 128\naccessed ones) from both private and public hospitals in six major divisions (divisions are the third tier of government in Pakistan,\nbetween the provinces and districts) of KPK. The qualitative study yielded five major themes during thematic analysis: (a) patients\nreporting, (b) lack of patient counseling, (c) lack of participation in health awareness programs, (d) pharmacists reducing the\nprescribing errors, and (e) insufficient number of pharmacists. A great proportion (67.9%) of the pharmacists was unsatisfied with\ntheir participation in health awareness programs. Findings of both phases revealed that hospital pharmacists in Pakistan are not\nactively participating in the provision of pharmaceutical care services. They are facing various hurdles for their active participation\nin patient care; major obstacles include the unavailability of sufficient number of pharmacists, lack of appropriate time for patient\ncounseling, and poor relationship between pharmacists and other health care providers.
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