Pharmacist's knowledge and attitude towards self-medication practices: a cross-sectional study for the development and validation of questionnaire.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Pharmacists play an essential role in self-medication by providing guidance and counselling services to consumers; hence, it is necessary to assess pharmacists' awareness and attitude towards self-medication to promote responsible self-medication practices. OBJECTIVE: To develop a valid and reliable instrument to assess the knowledge and attitude of pharmacists towards self-medication practices and their role in promoting responsible self-medication. METHOD: A questionnaire was developed in English after a relevant literature review, which was further administered to a sample of 105 community pharmacists. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed using the Karl-Pearson correlation and Cronbach alpha statistics. Content validity was evaluated by subject experts. The dimensional structure of items was assessed through exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). KEY FINDINGS: The final questionnaire comprises 27 items for knowledge and attitude with a Karl-Pearson correlation value of 0.896 and Cronbach alpha value of 0.814 (24 items), indicating good internal consistency and reproducibility. Factor analysis identified five factors namely, (i) attitude towards providing guidance and advice to consumers to promote responsible SMP, (ii) attitude towards shared responsibility for promoting rational medicine supply and use, (iii) knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of SMP, (iv) knowledge of the definition of self-medication, (v) attitude towards professional competency of a pharmacist as a healthcare provider. CFA results demonstrate good model fit with the value of Chi-square (184.56), CFI (0.937), RMSEA (0.054), and SRMR (0.075). Model validity measures ensure satisfactory validity and reliability. CONCLUSIONS: The findings demonstrate a valid and reliable measure for assessing the knowledge and attitude of pharmacists towards self-medication.