The link between moral reasoning scores, social desirability, and patient care performance scores: Empirical evidence from the retail pharmacy setting

The primary purpose of this cross sectional study was to empirically test the notion that retail pharmacists' moral reasoning scores (using Rest's Defining Issues Test) relate to their patient care performance scores (using the Behavioral Pharmaceutical Care Scale). Presently, retail pharmacy organizations are experiencing a paradigm shift from a prescription dispensing emphasis to a patient-centered one. The present investigation examined the influence of moral reasoning, within the situational context of workload pressures and perceived normative beliefs of significant others, on retail pharmacists' self-report patient care performance scores. A secondary goal was to explore the relationship between moral reasoning and retail pharmacists' propensity to exaggerate depictions of their true behavior (using a short-form Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale). Results indicated that, after controlling for situational factors, pharmacists' moral reasoning accounted for a significant amount of the variance associated with their clinical performance (p = 0.000). In addition, those pharmacists at higher levels of moral reasoning were significantly more likely to score low on social desirability (p = -0.465). The results and possible implications are discussed, along with study limitations.