Evaluation of knowledge, attitude, and practice of community pharmacists toward administration of over-the-counter drugs for the treatment of diarrhea in children: A pretest-posttest survey.

OBJECTIVE: In this study, we aimed to assess knowledge, attitude, and practice of community pharmacists toward administration of over-the-counter (OTC) antidiarrheal drugs in our city pharmacies, Shiraz, Iran.

METHODS: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 90 pharmacies among 128 pharmacies in our city were randomly chosen. The study was designed into two phases: A standard questionnaire to determine the level of knowledge and attitude of pharmacists and a simulated client method to evaluate practice among them. An educational pamphlet was then given to the pharmacists. One month later, knowledge, attitude, and performance of studied pharmacists were evaluated again using the same method.

FINDINGS: Our results showed that an average consultation time by female pharmacists was considerably more than male pharmacists (P < 0.001). Before intervention, only 37.8% of pharmacists performed appropriately by prescribing the proper medicine while this increased to 58.44% after intervention. The average score of pharmacists' knowledge was statistically increased (P < 0.001) and the pharmacists' performance was significantly improved (P < 0.001) after the educational intervention. In related to the attitude, pharmacists' tendency toward prescribing oral rehydration salt solutions (ORS) (P < 0.001) and their belief about the great effect of ORS on the treatment of diarrhea increased significantly after the intervention.

CONCLUSION: It is concluded that training programs such as educational pamphlets and continuing educational seminars may play important roles in increasing pharmacists' knowledge and therefore improving their performance in prescribing OTC medicines.