Discussion:
This study revealed that more than half of the pharmacists (51.1%) have
good knowledge about COVID-19 pandemic especially concerning methods of
transmission, incubation period, prevention methods and risk of severe
illness.
And this type of knowledge is very important as suspected patients and
co-patients may reach pharmacists in community pharmacy asking for over
the counter medications to relief their symptoms before they seek
medical attention, when they get worse, so it is so important that the
pharmacists must have the knowledge so as to council those patients,
more over this good know edge may help pharmacists to protect themselves
from getting infected.
Nevertheless their knowledge about treatment guidelines should be
better, for example more than 67% of participants, and more than 24%
think that Azithromycin and oxygen respectively is used in the national
protocol for treatment of mild cases, while in fact they are not.
Also more than 75% of pharmacists think that hydroxychloroquine is used
for treatment moderate cases, while according to the Sudan national
protocol it is used for the treatment of severe cases.
Although the Sudan national treatment protocol for COVID-19 is available
in the Federal Ministry of Health website (21) but it
is not widely distributed in the media so pharmacists do not have the
sufficient knowledge about this protocol.
Regarding contribution, the majority of participants provide different
types of information e.g: information about diseases symptoms (93.1%),
transmission information (94%), and prevention information (91.1%).
Different initiatives were acting in Sudan during this pandemic;
pharmacists play many roles in these initiatives e.g.: synthesizing or
distributing sanitizers (75%), also 76.7% of pharmacists participate
in community awareness programs.
More than half of pharmacists participate in referral of suspected
patients, developing protocols, research efforts, preparing medication
stocks.
The study revealed that work experience and level of education
significantly (P<0.05) influence pharmacists knowledge about
the COVID-19 pandemic.