Objective: The importance of self-supervised health care is growing.  In this field, we thought that pharmacists working in the community pharmacy or drugstore could play important roles in the health supervision of local residents, since they are familiar with community.  Here, we examined the effectiveness of “healthcare workshop” or “information service” by drugstore pharmacists on the consciousness of local residents regarding their health or the role of drugstore pharmacists as supporter of their medical health care.
Design and Methods: In the three branches of Yutaka pharmacy Ltd., we performed the “healthcare workshop” (4 times/ 6 months), “information service in regard to health or medical care” (about 10 times/day) and “distribution of medicine notebook” over 6 months.  To evaluate the effectiveness of these activities, the questionnaire was answered by the consumer in drugstores of the Yutaka pharmacy Ltd. before and after the “healthcare workshop” or “information service”.
Results: The recognition of pharmacist in the drugstore was significantly improved (before: 23.4%, after 39.1%).   In addition, the need of information service by drugstore pharmacists also increased from 62.5% to 76.1%.  Furthermore, the bringing ratio of medicine notebook and the percentage of submission of medicine notebook to doctors were increased from 52.1% to 61.5% and from 40.0% to 55.6%, respectively, while the possessive ratio of medicine notebook was not changed.
Conclusions: In the present study indicate that activities such as “healthcare workshop” and “information service” performed by pharmacists in drugstore are effective to provide many medical information extensively and to increase the need of information service by drugstore pharmacists in the local community.  In conclusion, continuance of these activities may important for drugstore pharmacists to be recognized as medical staff who support the health supervision of local residents in the future.