Knowledge, attitude and practice of community pharmacists towards nutrition counseling

Background The World Health Organization considers health promotion a top health service priority. Nutrition, weight management and physical activity are necessary health promotion strategies to improve overall quality of life and decrease the personal and societal consequences or poor health. Community pharmacists are in the best position to implement health promotion strategies due to their excellent accessibility and the lack of a requirement to make an appointment to interact with them. Enabling people to change their lifestyle and control their health through nutrition education and counseling is a great opportunity for community pharmacists to promote health. Nutrition counseling as a part of clinical nutrition therapy aims to provide dietary advice and to assist the selection of appropriate over-the-counter supplements. Objective To investigate the community pharmacist role in nutrition counseling and identify the barriers and strategies to improve nutrition counseling in Egypt. Setting Community pharmacies in Egypt. Methods A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted with a knowledge, attitude, and practice survey. A specially developed and validated questionnaire was used to collect data via face-to-face structured interviews. Primary outcomes Pharmacists’ knowledge about, attitudes towards and practice of nutrition counseling. Results A total of 368 community pharmacists participated in this study, with a response rate of 73.6%. A total of 255 (69.3%) of the participants considered medical nutrition therapy a part of a pharmacist’s duties. Only 146 (39.7%) of the participants believed that dietary supplements positively impact public health. According to 321 (87.2%) of the participants, the lack of pharmacists’ expertise in nutrition counseling was the main barrier to nutrition counseling. Conclusions The majority of the participating community pharmacists had positive attitudes towards their role in nutritional assessment and medical nutrition therapy. There is a need to improve the nutritional knowledge of community pharmacists in Egypt. The current practice of community pharmacists in nutrition counseling is limited to adults. Obesity, diabetes and hypertension were the main medical conditions of the patients who received nutrition counseling from the community pharmacists. Inadequate knowledge in nutrition and the unavailability of educational materials were the main barriers to nutrition counseling.