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Abstract
Objectives The widespread use of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) raised concerns on the safety of long-term use of these drugs. Community pharmacists have great responsibility of educating patients on these drugs which requires having adequate knowledge. The aim of this study was to assess the practices and knowledge of community pharmacists regarding PPIs.
Design This was a cross-sectional study conducted by filling in a questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed after a comprehensive literature review and assessed knowledge and practices.
Settings Community pharmacists with at least 1 year of experience working in a community pharmacy were enrolled in the study.
Participants Community pharmacists with at least 1 year of experience working in a community pharmacy were enrolled in the study.
Primary outcome measures The knowledge, attitudes, and practices of community pharmacists towards PPIs dispensing.
Results A total of 459 community pharmacists were approached for participation in the study, 451 (98.3%) community pharmacists agreed to be enrolled. The most dispensed PPIs in Jordan were lansoprazole and the most commonly treated medical condition with PPIs was gastric ulcer. PPIs were dispensed by the pharmacists very frequently and one-fourth of the participants did not review instructions with patients to ensure their proper use of PPIs. Participants had an average knowledge of 6.1±1.7 (the highest knowledge score is 12). More than one-third of participants (180, 39.9%) had inadequate knowledge (a score of less than 6). Being a PharmD graduate was the only significant factor that predicted adequate knowledge in the logistic regression model, with an adjusted OR of 5.671, p=0.002.
Conclusion To provide adequate pharmaceutical care services, community pharmacists must possess appropriate knowledge on different aspects of PPIs concerning administration, efficacy and long-term and short-term side effects.
- Health
- Health & safety
- Gastroenterology
- Medicine
- Pharmacists
- CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY
Data availability statement
Data are available on reasonable request. Data can be shared through the corresponding author on reasonable request.
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
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Data availability statement
Data are available on reasonable request. Data can be shared through the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Footnotes
Contributors LG: conceptualisation, methodology, analysis, writing-original draft preparation, guarantor. MAA: conceptualisation, data curation, writing-original draft preparation. MIA-H, ED and RA: conceptualisation, data curation, supervision, editing the original draft. ZL: methodology, writing-reviewing and editing. ZZZ: methodology, writing-reviewing and editing. LG is the guarantor.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.