Pharmaceutical care performance of community pharmacies in a state in Nigeria before and after implementation of an educational intervention

Abstract

Background: There have been inconsistencies in the practice of pharmaceutical care despite several years of its inception. There is need to assess pharmaceutical care performed in community pharmacies in Nigeria. This study therefore aimed to assess the level of pharmaceutical care performance in community pharmacies in a state in Nigeria before and after the implementation of educational intervention. Methods: The study used a pre-and post-study design conducted in forty community pharmacies in Anambra State. The level of pharmaceutical care performed in the community pharmacies was determined using a 24-item validated quality indicator assessed through simulated patients and an audit on the randomly selected community pharmacies. An educational intervention was developed and implemented to improve areas the community pharmacies performed poorly in rendering pharmaceutical care. Data collected were summarized using a frequency (percentage), mean, median, and mode. McNemar’s test was used to compare the significant differences between the pre-and post-performance scores of the community pharmacies. A significant value of P < 0.05 was employed. Results: The pre-assessment level revealed areas of poor performance by the pharmacists mostly in the documentation of pharmaceutical care activities; follow-up and referral of patients. Educational intervention targeted to improve areas community pharmacists perform poorly in rendering pharmaceutical care. The post-assessment resulted in significant improvement in pharmaceutical care with composite performance scores of 0.48 at pre-study and 0.61 at post-study. Conclusions: Community pharmacists in Anambra state have poor performance of pharmaceutical care. Continuous assessment of the community pharmacists is essential to sustain and improve pharmaceutical care performance.