Community pharmacists and other pharmacy practitioners’ perception toward pharmaceutical services of over-the-counter medications in Benghazi city, Libya: a cross sectional study
Keywords:
Over the counter;, self-medication;, community pharmacists;, drugs;, Libya.Abstract
Background: Over the Counter (OTC) medications can be defined as the drugs that can be sold without a prescription from a registered medical practitioner. It's generally acceptable for patients to self-medicate their non-serious illnesses with a more accessible, easy to purchase (OTC) from community pharmacies, however, such feasibility and accessibility has definitely imposed a number of issues over the past few decades, issues of abuse, over or improper medication, and symptomatic relief or a more dangerous health situation. Aim: This current study was conducted to investigate the understanding of community pharmacists and other pharmacy practitioners, in the Libyan city of Benghazi, of the issues regarding (OTC) medications dispensing and focusing on their role, practice, opinion and future perspective regarding managing these medications using a self-administered questionnaire. Method: The data were labeled, entered and analyzed using descriptive analysis for percent and frequency. While, Chi-square test were used to test the relationship between categorical variables with level of significance equal to (p < 0.05). Results and discussion: The response rate was (67%) and the pharmacist’s ratio among the participants was (58.96%) indicating that OTC and other medications are dispensed by (41.01%) of non-pharmacists making it unsafe in some cases. The OTC medications, the antibiotics and prescribed drugs were abused by both the pharmacists and other pharmacy practitioners with no significant difference as (P-value>0.05). The commonly dispensed OTC were analgesics and antipyretics. While, the symptoms were population dependent.
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