Abstract

The objective of this prospective cross sectional survey was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of community pharmacists towards cognitive pharmaceutical care services in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. The self-administered survey questionnaire contained a total of 20 questions out of which, couple of questions is to assess the knowledge and 9 questions each for assessing the attitude and perception of the community pharmacists. The questionnaire was validated for the reliability and validity through a pilot survey conducted with 20 respondents prior to the full-fledged survey. Two hundred fifty six pharmacists completed the self-administered questionnaire. Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics. The <25% of pharmacists in this study were familiar with the term pharmaceutical care. Nearly 70% of the respondents felt that their knowledge and skills have to be further developed to equip themselves to provide pharmaceutical care services. Also, the insufficient curriculum, training and lack of confidence were spelled as barriers for providing pharmaceutical care services. This revealed the mismatch between the basic pharmacy curriculum and training in India and the expected practice standards globally. The present practice of pharmacy in the community set-up needs shifting its focus from product oriented to patient oriented services. Most of the pharmacists were willing to participate in continuing professional education program to update their knowledge and skills pertaining to pharmaceutical care services. In these contexts, we urge the regulators, professional associations and other stakeholders to provide a well-structured continuing professional education programs with adequate credit points should be offered to Indian community pharmacists.