Community pharmacy professionals’ knowledge, attitude, and practice toward nutrition and lifestyle counseling in Gondar City, Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Community pharmacy professionals play a vital role in health care, have a greater impact on public health programs, and play a critical role in patient counseling for both non-pharmacological and pharmacological management. This study aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice of community pharmacy professionals toward nutrition and lifestyle counseling in Gondar City, Ethiopia. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was undertaken in Northwestern Ethiopia from May to June 2021. Face-to-face structured interviews were performed to collect data using a specially created questionnaire. Descriptive, independent t-test, and one-way ANOVA analyses were used. A significant difference was defined as a p-value of less than 0.05. Results: This survey drew 100 community pharmacy professional from a pool of 105 participants, with a 95.2% response rate. More than a third of the participants (n = 43, 43%) defined medical nutrition therapy as the use of food to prevent disease, and almost half of the participants (n = 51, 51%) viewed therapeutic nutrition to be part of their job responsibilities. More than half (64%) believe that patients should be provided a combination of nutritional and pharmacological treatments in the majority of cases. The majority of participants (75%) gave patients counseling on drug-food interactions. Conclusion: The majority of community pharmacy professionals said they knew a lot about medical nutrition therapy and were enthusiastic about nutrition evaluation and medical nutrition therapy, they see these tasks as part of their job, and they practiced dietary counseling that was limited to pregnancy and chronic diseases.