Background: Up to now, there have been no data on patient counselling in the Slovak community pharmacies. The literature provides a wide range of activities for which mystery shopping methodology be used, including assessment of patient counselling. Aims and objectives: To assess patient counselling on the common cold treatment with OTC medicine containing zinc provided by Slovak community pharmacists. To analyse this counselling considering the set scenarios, counsellors and their age. Methods: 54 pharmacy students visited 270 different community pharmacies throughout Slovakia in 2 weeks in October 2016 to conduct mystery shopping with set scenarios. For assessment of patient counselling, we defined Counselling Performance. It was conceptualised as weighted mean percentage counselling successes rate of its three categories (Identification, Information and Communication) and their weights. Individual perception of counselling evaluated separately. Student t-test and Person's chi-squared test (p
