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International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy

, Volume 40, Issue 3, pp 668–675 | Cite as

Evaluation of community pharmacists’ knowledge and awareness of food–drug interactions in Palestine

  • Asma RadwanEmail author
  • Anwar Sweileh
  • We’am Shraim
  • Amr Hroub
  • Josephean Elaraj
  • Naser Shraim
Research Article
First Online:
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Abstract

Background Food–drug interactions can produce undesirable outcomes during the therapy process. The pharmacist is responsible for providing patients counseling about common food-drug interactions. Knowledge of such interactions is important to avoid their occurrence. Objective This study aimed to assess the knowledge and awareness of community pharmacists about common food-drug interactions. Setting Pharmacists working in community pharmacies across Northern Palestine. Method This is a cross-sectional study, which involved a convenience sample of 259 pharmacists working in community pharmacies in Palestine. A self-administered questionnaire consisted of 29 questions (mainly yes/no questions) was used to assess pharmacists’ knowledge towards the most common and clinically significant interactions between food and medicines. Main outcome measure Pharmacists’ issues related to the knowledge of food drug interactions were evaluated. Results A total of 320 questionnaires were distributed of which 259 were completed providing a response rate 80.9%. One pharmacist from each community pharmacy was asked to complete the questionnaire. The overall knowledge score of food-drug interactions for the pharmacists was 17.9 (61.7%) out of a possible maximum of 29. The pharmacists surveyed in this study have demonstrated good knowledge of some interactions; but poor knowledge of others. Conclusion Pharmacists’ knowledge about common food–drug interactions is inadequate. These findings support the need for training and educational courses for pharmacists regarding food–drug interactions.

Keywords

Community pharmacists Drug interactions Food–drug interactions Knowledge Palestine 
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Notes

Funding

No external funding was received for this study.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  • Asma Radwan
    • 1
    Email author
  • Anwar Sweileh
    • 1
  • We’am Shraim
    • 1
  • Amr Hroub
    • 1
  • Josephean Elaraj
    • 1
  • Naser Shraim
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of PharmacyAn-Najah National UniversityNablusPalestine

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