KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES OF COMMUNITY PHARMACISTS ABOUT PROTON PUMP INHIBITORS

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of community pharmacists about proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). Material and Method: The study was a cross-sectional online survey study It was conducted with community pharmacists in Türkiye between 1 November 2022 and 15 April 2023. The survey questions were created by revising the previous study and consisted of 32 questions. Of these, 4 were about demographic information, 16 were about knowledge, 6 were about attitude, and 6 were about practices. Result and Discussion: The vast majority of pharmacists who participated into the study (97.6%) knew that drugs such as pantoprazole, omeprazole, etc. were PPIs, and a majority of pharmacists (84.5%) knew that PPIs were inactive pro-drugs. 63.1% of the pharmacists answered correctly that omeprazole had the most individual variability. The vast majority (93.5%) of pharmacists believed that PPIs were overused in Türkiye. 86.3% of pharmacists believed that excessive consumption of PPIs resulted in increased costs and adverse drug reactions. 46 pharmacists (27.38%) declared that they have used PPIs in the last 1 year. Pantoprazole (15.5%) and lansoprazole (7.7%) were the most commonly used PPIs, respectively. According to our study, although pharmacists' knowledge, attitudes, and practices about PPIs were generally good, there were also some deficiencies in their knowledge. Therefore, pharmacists need to update themselves and be supported by interdisciplinary continuous educations.