Sara M Moustafa1,
Fouad R Sakr1,
Marwan G Akel1-3,
Jihan H Safwan1,
Michelle M Cherfan1,
Mohamad K Rahal1
Mariam K Dabbous1,2 
For correspondence:- Mariam Dabbous Email: mariam.dabbous@liu.edu.lb Tel:+96176877750
Accepted: 24 January 2020 Published: 30 April 2020
Citation: Moustafa SM, Sakr FR, Akel MG, Safwan JH, Cherfan MM, Rahal MK, et al. Knowledge, attitude and practice of Lebanese community pharmacists with regard to self-management of low back pain. Trop J Pharm Res 2020; 19(4):873-878 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v19i4.28
© 2020 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..
Purpose: To determine the knowledge, attitude and reported practice of Lebanese community pharmacists who advise persons who present with low back pain.
Methods: This was a multi-center cross-sectional study conducted in over 300 community pharmacies across Lebanon from December 2017 to May 2018. Pharmacists working at a community pharmacy were considered eligible, and those who volunteered to participate completed the questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed for self-completion by the pharmacist and included demographic questions about the respondent, questions that assessed knowledge and attitude toward low back pain, and questions about treatment to reflect and characterize the nature of practice. The primary outcome was to determine the knowledge, attitude and reported practice of the Lebanese pharmacists advising people who presented with low back pain. The secondary outcome was to assess factors that affect knowledge, attitude, and practice.
Results: The response of 320 community pharmacists was analysed. The proportion of pharmacists with good knowledge about low back pain (51. 7 %) was slightly higher than those with poor knowledge (48. 3 %). Oral therapy was the most prescribed dosage form for back pain compared to local patch and cream. Among oral dosage forms, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs were the most prescribed medications (42 %). Of the patients’ referral to the physician if necessary, 73.1 % of the referrals were by pharmacists.
Conclusion: Community pharmacists in Lebanon demonstrate an acceptable level of knowledge of back pain, yet major gaps still exist, particularly in terms of the quality of advice. Hence, more education is needed to provide better quality of advice.
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