Pharmacists’ attitudes, perceptions and counseling toward smoking cessation in Palestine

Supervisor:

Dr. Samah Al-jabi

Abstract:

Introduction: Smoking is a major public health problem in Palestine that lead to many diseases and complications. The role of pharmacists in smoking cessation counseling can be high in this country.

Objectives of the study:the main objectives of this study were to estimate the pharmacists’ attitude, perception, and counseling toward smoking cessation. And to assess the current smoking cessation practices of pharmacists and the barriers for smoking cessation counseling in community pharmacies in Palestine.

Methods: It was a cross sectional study that included community pharmacists in Palestine during a period of July to December 2014. The information was self reported by pharmacists. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) program Version 16.

Results: Over a period of 6 months, 293 pharmacists working in community pharmacies (88% response rate) responded to fill the survey. About 46% of respondents asked their patients if they smoke. When the patients’ smoking status were identified, 30% of respondents most of the time advising them to quit. More than 33% assist their patients in quitting by advising them about the use of nicotine replacement gums and patches. In addition, 72% strongly agreed that smoking could cause many adverse effects. About 55% strongly agreed that quitting smoking could decrease the risk of smoking induced adverse health effects. The majority of pharmacists agreed that it is important as a pharmacist to offer smoking cessation counseling to smokers and it is an efficient use of their time performed by 57.3% and 43.3% of respondents, respectively. The top two perceived barriers for smoking cessation counseling were lack of patients’ interest in discussing smoking cessation counseling (65.9%) and lack of smoking cessation educational materials (47.8 %).

Conclusion: Palestinian community pharmacists have positive attitudes toward smoking cessation counseling. And these attitudes need to be translated into actions. Interventions should be implemented to overcome. The barriers for smoking cessation counseling should be assessed to improve smoking cessation activities among pharmacists.