Abstract:
Purpose: The objective of this study was to assess the attitude and perception of community
pharmacy professionals’ towards ethical issues.
Methods: We have undertaken a cross-sectional study among community pharmacy professionals in three selected towns (Gondar, Bahir Dar, and Debra Markos) of Amhara region in
Ethiopia from February to March 2020. All community pharmacy professionals who were
giving services during the data collection period were the study population. We used
a pretested, semi-structured questionnaire developed from a review of previous study. Epiinfo 7.1 was used for data entry, and SPSS version 20 was used for data analysis. Logistic
regression was done, and a variable with a p-value < 0.05 with 95% confidence interval was
considered to be associated with outcome variable.
Results: A total of 305 community pharmacy professionals participated in the study with
a response rate of 95.3%. About 252 (82.6%) of respondents received education regarding
professional ethics. Majority (89.8%) of the participants had ever accessed ethical information
at their work site. Only 145 (47.5%) participants had ever recorded ethical issues in their working
site. The most common reasons that obstruct to explain ethical issues to customers were shortage
of time (85.9%), unavailability of reliable resources (40.0%), and poor ethical knowledge
(37.7%). The reporting rate of respondents is less than 50% for most ethical scenarios. Sex,
age, educational status, work experience, number of customers per day, working site, information
about ethics, and training about ethics were observed to have a significant association with
attitude and perception of community pharmacy professionals towards ethical issues.
Conclusion: Community pharmacy professionals had poor attitude and perception towards
ethical issues. Interventions should be devised to uphold ethical awareness of community
pharmacy professionals. A large-scale study is also recommended
