[영문]Background: In 1999, Saskatchewan Health authorized pharmacists toinitiate exception drug status (EdS) requests, also known as prior authorization(Pa). Before 1999, only those licensed to prescribe medicationswere authorized to initiate EdS requests. a pharmacist who submits anEdS request must obtain a patient diagnosis from the physician or agentof the physician; a diagnosis presented by the patient is insufficient.oBjEctIvE: to obtain pharmacists’ opinions about the benefits of the Paprogram of the Saskatchewan drug Plan and to identify factors associatedwith pharmacist-initiated EdS requests.MEtHodS: a census survey of community pharmacy managers was conductedvia a self-administered postal questionnaire in the province ofSaskatchewan, canada, in the fall of 2004. the survey questionnaire wasaddressed to pharmacy managers, some of whom may have delegated theresponse to a staff pharmacist. Pharmacy managers or their delegateswere asked to respond on behalf of all pharmacists in their pharmacies.rESuLtS: a response rate of 82.6% was achieved (275/333). a majorityof respondents agreed that the province’s Pa program (EdS) benefitedpatients (87.3%) and the Saskatchewan drug Plan (82.5%), whereas only33.4% of respondents agreed that the EdS program benefited pharmacists.Pharmacists’ ability to obtain the requisite information (87.6%) andto contact the prescribing physician (87.3%), as well as patient-centeredconcerns such as the patient’s ability to pay for the prescription (85.1%),were the most important factors. the time required by the pharmacistto initiate the request was not important relative to other factors.community pharmacies reported receipt of an average of 36.4 prescriptionsfor restricted and nonformulary drugs per week, of which 22 weresubmitted for Pa coverage, 17 by the pharmacy and 5 by the pharmacy atthe request of the physician.concLuSIonS: the results of this study indicate that community pharmacistsin Saskatchewan acknowledge that the EdS process is beneficial fortheir patients. However, pharmacists are burdened by an administrativeprocess in which necessary information, particularly the patient diagnosis,is not readily available