Pharmacists' concerns and perceived benefits from the deregulation of hormonal emergency contraception (HEC).

Objective. To ascertain pharmacists' views, assess willingness for involvem ent and delineate individual perceived competence in the supply of deregula ted hormonal emergency contraception (HEC). Design. Cross-sectional postal questionnaire utilising closed, open and Lik ert-scale questions. Subjects. Three thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine registered pharmacist s abstracted from the mailing list of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of G reat Britain. Results. In total 1543 (38.6%) questionnaires were returned and analysed. O verall, 616 (39.9%) of respondents felt individually competent to supply de regulated HEC with a positive association between perceived competence and willingness to supply deregulated HEC (p < 0.05). Pharmacists perceive the major benefits of deregulation to be a reduced unwanted pregnancy rate and a subsequent reduced abortion rate. They perceive that deregulation would a llow quicker and less restricted access to HEC by clients, facilitating an increased overall supply of HEC. Pharmacists express a number of concerns, tempering their collective desire to see HEC deregulation. The majority of these concerns related to safeguarding clients and the possible adverse pub lic health effects associated with the possible reduced use of barrier meth ods of contraception. Conclusions. Most pharmacists would be willing to supply HEC if it were der egulated to 'pharmacy only' from 'prescription only' medicine status. Altho ugh concerns were raised, these were mainly related to safety issues, with few pharmacists identifying moral and ethical barriers to deregulation to o ccur issues of professional competence need to be addressed.