The surveyed community pharmacists favor the provision of public health activities following appropriate training and reduction or removal of barriers. Further interventional studies regarding application of a health education and health promotion model to selected populations in community pharmacies are recommended.

Sudanese community pharmacists provide RTS and CDM services; however, clinical knowledge and training and well defined national practice standards needs were identified. The current product-focused activities need to be refined to include more patient-focused services. For Improved patients' self-care services, a number of obstacles identified by surveyed pharmacists need to resolved. This requires collaboration of different parties including academics, governmental bodies and professional organizations.

Objectives: To investigate response of the community pharmacists to acute back pain consultations by the patients, using doctor of pharmacy degree (Pharm D) final year students as simulated patients. Method:The study was a cross-sectional study, conducted over a three months period from April 2016 to July 2016 in community pharmacy setting. The study was done at the western area in Saudi Arabia, at three cities: (Jeddah-Mecca-Taif). Convenient sample of 300 pharmacies were chosen. The students appeared in the pharmacy as patients. A check list was filled immediately after the visit. Results: Results of the study showed that most of pharmacies studied were chain pharmacies (67.3%). The response of the pharmacists towards patients' counseling ranges from (6-55%). The majority of the pharmacists did not ask about spreading of the pain (93%), other disease (91%), medications taken (90%), intensity of pain (83.67%), and duration (83%). There was a low response of pharmacists towards self-care, except rarely, who gave advice for back exercise (6.667%). About 98% and above, did not give information about expected drug problems. Referral was given mainly for numbness symptoms (10.67%). Types of medications recommended were diclofenac sodium (44.67%), muscle relaxants (28.67%) and topical NSAIDS (25.33%). About 70%, of the pharmacists did not give advice spontaneously. Counseling time was less than one minute in 67.67% of the cases. Conclusions: The response of community pharmacists, to acute back pain consultations was inadequate, which necessitates educational and training programs in minor disease treatment, and availability of national guidelines.

Objectives This study aims to describe the current state of Sudanese community pharmacy practice and explore the capacity of existing community pharmacies to foster the change to pharmaceutical care (PC) and to assess attitude and knowledge of community pharmacists regarding PC and identify barriers. Methods A structured, self‐administered, piloted questionnaire was distributed to the pharmacists in charge of 274, randomly selected, community pharmacies in Khartoum state. The questionnaire included six domains: demographic characteristics, organizational structure of community pharmacies, current activities of community pharmacists, their attitudes and knowledge regarding PC, and potential barriers. Attitude responses were measured by a 5‐point Likert scale. Key findings Response rate was 67%. Community pharmacies are short on some tools that are deemed necessary for PC implementation, e.g. consultation areas. Community pharmacists provide mainly product‐focused services with no or little PC activities. However, there is a highly positive attitude among the majority of respondents towards practice change to include PC (mean positive score ± standard deviation = 4.39 ± 0.73, frequency (%) = 89%). Many barriers to implementation of PC were identified, e.g. pharmacists' clinical knowledge and lack of understanding of pharmacist's new role. Conclusion Sudanese community pharmacists favour practice change to include PC. Successful implementation of PC requires substantial organizational and structural changes in community pharmacies, including provision of clinical knowledge, strengthening of clinical training and new practice standards. This change in practice could benefit from involvement of academia, governmental bodies and professional organizations working together for the pharmacy profession.

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