Pharmacists’ knowledge, attitude and practice in the UAE toward the public health crisis of COVID-19:: A cross-sectional study

• Munther S. Alnajjar ^[1] ; Sham ZainAlAbdin ^[3] ; Mosab Arafat ^[4] ; Sanaa Skaik ^[2] ; Salah AbuRuz ^[5]
  1. [1] Al-Ahliyya Amman University

     Al-Ahliyya Amman University

     Jordania

     
  2. [2] Arizona State University

     Arizona State University

     Estados Unidos

     
  3. [3] Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, The United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.
  4. [4] College of Pharmacy, Al Ain University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
  5. [5] Professor of Clinical Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, United Arab Emirates and Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan.

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• Localización: Pharmacy Practice (Granada), ISSN-e 1886-3655, Vol. 20, Nº. 1, 2022 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Jan-Mar)
• Idioma: inglés
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  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Dialnet Métricas: 2 Citas
• Resumen

  • Objectives: Internationally, pharmacists have shown a pivotal role in alleviating the unprecedented spread of the COVID-19 as they are the first touchpoint to patients. The aim of this study to evaluate the UAE pharmacists’ knowledge about and practice in the global COVID-19 pandemic.

    Methods: A quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted during a period from August 2020 to January 2021. A well-designed standardized English-based questionnaire was developed based on current literature and employed for this study.

    Findings: The results showed that 45.7% of the participated pharmacists expected to have a good level of knowledge about COVID-19 transmission, symptoms and treatment. Among the participated community pharmacists, around 25.7% educated their patients and 17.0% counseled the public about the current available therapeutic options for managing COVID-19 symptom. Most practiced activities hospital pharmacists (17.4%) was exploring new drug therapies or uses, while few hospital pharmacists (13.0%) participated in the antimicrobial stewardship programs and monitored antibiotic uses for COVID-19 cases and co-infections. Pharmacists at age ≥40 years old and have an experience of ≥10 years in the pharmacy field were more knowledgeable about COVID-19 with higher scores (p <0.001 and p= 0.001; respectively).

    Conclusions: The study revealed an appropriate average knowledge and practice toward COVID-19 among community and hospital pharmacists.