| Abstract: | Objective To explore the attitudes of Nigerian community pharmacists towards health promotion, to determine the importance pharmacists attach to health promotion behaviours and their perceived involvement in promoting them among their clients. Methods We conducted a cross‐sectional survey of community pharmacists in two Nigerian cities. Attitudes toward health promotion were assessed using a 24‐item instrument. The importance pharmacists attach to healthy behaviours as well as their perceived involvement was assessed using a 23‐item standard instrument. Interval data on questionnaire items were gathered on a Likert‐type scale, and the demographic characteristics of the respondents were also profiled. Principal factor analysis employed Varimax rotation with Kaiser normalisation. Associations between demographic profile and responses were evaluated using Student's t test and one‐way ANOVA. Results About 84% of the respondents indicated a favourable attitude towards health promotion. Nearly all the respondents (98%) were interested in health promotion services, and 94% indicated willingness to devote extra time to talk to patients. A majority (93%) reported willingness to retrain on health promotion. Lack of health promotion policy for pharmacists, and negative attitude towards the utilisation of pharmacy technicians were potential barriers. Pharmacists that were studied attached very high importance to 12 of the 23 widely advocated health promotion behaviours, and felt they should be very involved in seven of them. Medication‐related counselling, use of condoms, and maintenance of blood pressure were perceived to be top priorities. Rating attitudinal scores, importance of healthy behaviours, and level of involvement were 94.07 ± 20.77, 99.22 ± 21.78, and 93.33 ± 24.01 respectively (range 23 to 115; midpoint 69). Perceived involvement had moderate correlation with the importance attached, r = 0.6488 (P = 0.0008). Conclusion There is an indication that the Nigerian community pharmacists in this survey perceived an extended role in health promotion, especially medication‐related activities. This is consistent with the philosophy of primary healthcare and pharmaceutical care. |
