The role of community pharmacists in health services in Manisa and the variables affecting it

Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the roles of community pharmacists in health services in Manisa and the variables that affect it. Materials and Methods: This study is a cross-sectional analytical study. The population of the research consists of 524 pharmacists who are actively working as a community pharmacist in Manisa. Without calculating the sample, the researcher tried to reach the entire universe between December 2021 and May 2022. 190 community pharmacists participated in the study voluntarily. Sociodemographic information, counseling topics, 41 questions to determine the problems encountered and 52-item HLSB II scale was applied to pharmacists online. Since sufficient data could not be collected on the online platform in the required time, the method was changed during the research and all pharmacies in the central two districts (n: 151) were visited and a face-to-face survey form was applied. Since the beginning of data collection, online data from districts outside the center have also been included in the data set. The coverage of the research is %76.2 (n:115) for the central districts and %36.3 (n:190) for all of Manisa, which has 17 districts. The dependent variables of the research are the status of pharmacists to provide public health counseling services and status of evaluation of the services provided by the counseling providers. In univariate analyzes Chi-square test, independent groups t test, pearson correlation test and logistic regression analysis in multivariate analyzes were used. Results: The mean age of the pharmacists participating in our study was 48.72±15.07, and %65.3 of them were women. When asked about the public health counseling services they provide to pharmacists, they are listed as hypertension %83.8, healthy nutrition %79.4, emergency contraception %77.9, weight control %77.2, Kovid-19 %77.2, diabetes %75.0 and others. The least subject of counseling service is the risk of suicide (%9.6). When pharmacists were asked about the obstacles that prevent people applying to a pharmacy from requesting counseling services, %63.7 of them answered as shame, %53.2 of the applicant's education level, %49.5 of the pharmacy being crowded and others, respectively. When asked about the obstacles preventing pharmacists from providing this service themselves, %73.7 of the pharmacists have excessive workload, %67.4 of them have too much technical work done by the pharmacist, %53.7 of them are insufficient in time, %50.5 answered that patients are mostly in a hurry and do not have time for such applications and others. The mean HLSB II of the participants was 125.94±20.27. In our research, the rate of pharmacists participating in the My Guide Pharmacy Program is %16.3. In our study, it was determined that pharmacists with less professional experience gave counseling services 1.03 times (%95CI=1.01-1.05), pharmacists participating in the My Guide Pharmacy Program 5.15 times (%95CI= 2.06-12.83), pharmacists with overweight/obese 3.49 (%95CI= 1.73-7.05) times more. Conclusion: Community pharmacists who participate in vocational training programs provide more public health counseling services than those who do not. The participation of community pharmacists in educational programs such as TEB's My Guide pharmacy is low. The participation of pharmacists should be increased by strengthening such training programs. Research indicates that many community pharmacists take on public health roles and these roles can be enhanced with appropriate support. TEB and the Ministry of Health can create new frameworks and cooperation plans by arranging their counseling roles and professional rights together for more effective integration of community pharmacists into the health system. Keywords: Pharmacists, Public health, Turkey.