Objectives: To describe and apply a model for combining self-assessed frequency and criticality for pharmacy technicians' roles and to evaluate similarities and differences between attitudes toward public safety in various practice settings.
Design: Cross-sectional mail survey of randomly selected pharmacy technicians in one state.
Setting: Iowa in fall 2012.
Participants: 1,000 registered technicians.
Intervention: Mail survey with option for online completion.
Main outcome measures: Scored ratings related to perceptions of frequency and criticality of roles. Technicians rated role frequency on a scale from 1 (not responsible) to 6 (daily) and role criticality on a scale from 1 (no importance) to 4 (extremely important). A weighted relative importance score was ranked to show importance of the role considering frequency and criticality together.
Results: The response rate was 25.81%. Ratings for frequency were correlated to ratings for criticality for 22 of 23 roles. A Mann-Whitney U test found a difference between ambulatory technicians and hospital technicians. A visual matrix of a dual-scaled analysis showed both groups' role ratings to be positively linearly related. Hospital technicians showed wider discrimination in their ratings for some roles than for others.
Conclusion: Perceived role frequency and criticality can be considered together to contextualize the practice environment. The data suggest a relationship between perceived frequency of role performed and perception of a role's criticality. The study found differences between how technicians from various practice settings perceive their roles.