Abstract:

Introduction: Nigeria is the third highest Tuberculosis (TB)-burden country in the world and number one in Africa. Level of TB case detection and control is low. Community pharmacists can be trained to provide TB case detection of new patients and management of patients who had been earlier assessed and treatment initiated in the hospitals.

Aim: To assess the level of Community Pharmacists’ knowledge and involvement in Tuberculosis case detection and management.

Methodology: This is the first phase of the interventional study that was aimed at scaling up community pharmacists’ involvement in tuberculosis case detection and management. A cross sectional descriptive study was carried out on 285 randomly selected Community Pharmacists in Lagos State using a multi-staged cluster sampling method and structured questionnaire, followed by Focus Group Discussions and Key Informant Interviews.

Results: Knowledge on TB cause, transmission, signs and symptoms was high, 98%, 95.5% and 88.1% respectively while 73.15% of the pharmacists said they have identified clients suspected of having pulmonary TB. Of the Pharmacists that have identified clients suspected of having pulmonary TB, majority (65.7%) had referred them to the health centres. Only 15.4% of the pharmacists were involved in DOTs with TB patients. Correct knowledge of duration of treatment was found among 83.6% of respondents.

Conclusion: Community Pharmacists are highly knowledgeable in TB cause, transmission, signs, symptoms, regimen and duration of treatment and are informally involved in TB case detection and management.

Keywords: Community Pharmacists; Tuberculosis; Knowledge; involvement; Case Detection, Scaling-up.

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