Knowledge, Attitude, Practice, and Perceived Barriers toward Smoking Cessation among Community Pharmacists Services in Al-Karak Governorate

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background: There are about a billion smokers in the world, 80% of whom are from developing countries, and also the World Health Organization stated that smoking is considered a global health problem. Jordan is one of the countries with the highest rates of tobacco smoking in the world. However, interventions related to tobacco use, which can reduce diseases resulting from or associated with smoking and thus reduce health-care costs, are still rare in Jordan. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate community pharmacists’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward smoking cessation (SC) and to identify the most important barriers they face in providing SC counseling in community pharmacies in Alkarak, Jordan. Materials and Methods: The study used a cross-sectional design based on a descriptive approach and included community pharmacies in April 2021. Data were collected from 199 participating pharmacists on duty in 76 pharmacies. A structured, reliable, English-language, and valid questionnaire was used to collect data consisting of five parts. The questionnaire included pharmacists’ sociodemographics, knowledge, attitudes, and practices, as well as barriers associated with SC services. The data and differences in participants’ responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics SPSS version 19, analysis of variance, and the confidence level was 80%. Results: One hundred and ninety-nine pharmacists completed the survey. The mean age of the pharmacists was 30.05 ± 7.15 years. Eighty-one percent of participating pharmacists had high knowledge regarding SC and SC products, and 80% of them agreed that it was their responsibility to advise smoking patients regarding SC. Multivariate analysis showed a statistically significant relationship between attitude and practice. Conclusions: Our study concluded from the overall findings that pharmacists generally have the knowledge and attitudes required to play an important role in counseling patients about SC. Community pharmacists in Alkarak, Jordan, generally expressed positive attitudes regarding tobacco cessation counseling. We recommend opening the way for researchers to pay attention to this topic and publish many researches on the impact of educational training programs for pharmacy students by raising their level of knowledge about SC.