Abstract

ASSESSMENT OF THE AWARENESS, KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE, AND PRACTICE OF SUDANESE COMMUNITY PHARMACISTS, IN KHARTOUM STATE, ABOUT DRUG INTERACTIONS.

Abduelrahman Salah Abduelrahman Tokka* and Kamal-Addin Mohammad Ahmad Idris

Abstract

Background: Drug interactions, which are quite commonly encountered in medical prescriptions, may lead to serious health problems, though sometime might prove beneficial. Pharmacists in both private and public pharmacies are by profession in a unique position to acquire, utilize and use their competencies to detect and prevent drug interactions The Objective: To assess the overall general, awareness, knowledge, attitude and practice of Sudanese community pharmacists, about drug interactions. Materials and Method: A structured pre-piloted questionnaire composed of (45) questions, was handed over to (322) randomly selected community pharmacists in Khartoum state. Twenty-five (25) pairs of potential drug-drug, (nine pairs), drug-food (eight pairs) and drug-disease interactions (eight pairs), were included in the questionnaire. Results: The response rate was very high (99.4%). Respondent’s median age (28 years), majorities (57.2%) were females, majority (75%) had an experience of less than 5 years and (58.8%) were from private sector settings. Respondent’s averages of awareness, attitude and practice regarding drug interactions, correct knowledge of drug-drug, drug-food, drug-disease interactions and knowledge of modification targets were, (89.13%), (80%), (53.3%), (65.4%), (58.4%) and (53.62%), respectively. No significant correlations were found between, respondent’s knowledge about drug-interactions and other different variables. Collaboration between doctors and pharmacists in this concern, were poor. Conclusion: the study results showed respondents' high rates awareness, attitude and practice about drug interactions. However, knowledge about drug-drug interactions though fair, yet it was not up to researchers' expectations. Continuous on-job training and use of drug interactions booklets and detection softwares may help improve community pharmacists’ knowledge.

Keywords: Community pharmacists, knowledge, Drug-interactions, Sudanese.