Libyan Pharmacy Employees’ Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice toward Re-dispensing of Unused and Unwanted Medicines Returned by Patients

Abstract

Pharmacies dispensing of returned medicines by another patient could be risky to other patients especially if the drug was damaged. This study aimed to assess pharmacy employees’ knowledge, attitude, and practice toward re-dispensing unused and unwanted medicines returned by patients in Tripoli, Libya. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in September 2021 targeting a total of 47 community pharmacies in Tripoli, Libya. Data were collected by face-to-face interview using self-designed ques-tionnaire containing queries about refunding and re-dispensing unused and unwanted medicines in community pharmacies. Data were presented as descriptive statistics. Results showed that, out of 47 visited pharmacies, a total of 41 (87.1%) pharmacists were participated in the study, with one phar-macist being interviewed in each pharmacy. About 51% of participants had a pharmacy education certification, while 49% had either Medical or English language certification. Approximately 92.7% of the participants didn’t know about the presence of any guideline related to returning unused and un-wanted medicines, whereas 3(7.3%) participants said that they know about these guidelines. Addition-ally, only 1(2.5%) of participant properly explained the WHO instruction of accepting retuned medicines. About 80.5% of the participants accept medicines returned from patients while 19.5% did not, and approximately 80.5% re-dispense those medicines to other patients. Meanwhile, 36.6% accepted the unwanted medicines, and 61% re-dispense those medicines. In conclusion, a substantial proportion of pharmacy personnel leak to the knowledge and attitude toward return unused and unwanted medicines, suggesting that training may be helpful.