Assessment of community pharmacy professionals’ willingness, involvement, beliefs, and barriers to offer health promotion services: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Abstract Introduction The role of community pharmacy professionals has been expanded to patient care and health promotion service globally. However, in Ethiopia, there is a scanty of data on the issue, although the country is dealing with a double burden of non-communicable and communicable diseases. Objectives This study aimed to assess community pharmacy professionals’ willingness, involvement, beliefs, and barriers to offer extended services for health promotion in Injibara town, Amhara, Ethiopia. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted among licensed and registered community pharmacy professionals working in Injibara town from June 25 to July 10, 2022. A structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. The data were presented using descriptive statistics. The data were analyzed using STATA version 16 software. Results A total of 24 community pharmacy professionals were involved in the study, with a response rate of 92.3%. Approximately 91.7% of them were involved in health promotional services. Of them, 54.1% were willing and strongly believed that their involvement in health promotion services would have a positive impact on promoting health. A total of 60.9% of the community pharmacy professionals reported that they were very involved in family planning and alcohol consumption counseling. Different barriers to not providing health promotion services were also cited. Conclusions Majority of community pharmacy professionals in this study is involved in health promotional services but there are also barriers on their involvement. Therefore, governmental strategies to overcome the barriers that hamper their involvement should be designed.