59A CLINICAL PHARMACIST ROLE IN PATIENT COUNSELLING IN HEALTH CARE SERVICES IN INDIA – AN OVER VIEWThe profession of pharmacy is developing rapidly all over the world. Along with this, the responsibility of the pharmacist through utilisation of his technical and professional knowledge in promoting the rational use of medicine is also increasing. It is well documented that safe and effective drug therapy occurs when patients are well informed about the medications and their use. Patient counselling is a critical component of the dispensing process and the concept of patient counselling in its modern form originated in India in the mid1990s. Since then, considerable growth and development occurred in the country in the area. Clinical pharmacists are the most qualified health care professionals to provide counselling to the patients. Physicians due to their heavy work load, lack of time are unable to spend enough time with the patients and so the pharmacists should take this as their primary responsibility and counsel the patients. Finally it was concluded that a wellstructured patient counselling by clinical pharmacist will result in better knowledge of disease and medications which inturn improves their medication adherence.mouni.b09@gmail.comReview432014Medication knowledge,Patient Counselling,Emerging trends in Pharmacy Practice,Patient complianceMounica Bollu, Nallani Venkata Ramarao,Sharmila Nirojini,Ramarao NadendlaDept of Pharmacy Practice, Chalapathi Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Lam, Guntur-522034, Andhra Pradesh, India,Dept of Pharmacy Practice, Chalapathi Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Lam, Guntur-522034, Andhra Pradesh, India,Dept of Pharmacy Practice, Chalapathi Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Lam, Guntur-522034, Andhra Pradesh, India,Dept of Pharmacy Practice, Chalapathi Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Lam, Guntur-522034, Andhra Pradesh, India