Challenges in Providing Immunization Services amongst Community Pharmacists in South-south, Nigeria: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Background: The primary aim of Community Pharmacists’ participation in immunization is to contribute towards mitigating deaths associated with vaccine preventable diseases as well as expanding access to immunisation services. However, with the increasing Nigerian population, the global targets of reducing child mortality can significantly be achieved by periodically reviewing health systems performance to identify and address existing gaps.
 Objective: The general objective of the study is to identify the challenges encountered by Community Pharmacists in providing immunisation services in Calabar Metropolis of Cross River State.
 Method: A descriptive cross sectional study design was adopted for the study. Data were collected using a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire from 68 community pharmacists which were selected using the purposive sampling technique. Data generated were synthesised and analysed using SPSS (version 20.0) and results were presented in frequency tables and charts. Fisher Exact test was used to test for association between variables at 0.05 alpha level.
 Results: Results showed that most community pharmacies have the resources to participate in immunization, only a few however had immunization administration record sheets 7(11.3%) and immunization record cards for patients 4 (6.5%). The finding also showed that lack of training 55 (88.7%); low awareness by the public of immunization services provided by the community pharmacist 44 (70.9%) and storage of vaccines 39 (62.9%) were the prominent perceived challenges to providing immunization in the community pharmacy. The association between lack of time (p =1.000, Fisher’s Exact test) and provision of immunization services was statistically not significant.
 Conclusion: Addressing identified challenges is pivotal to increasing and expanding accessibility and utilisation of immunisation services especially amongst the populace in resource limited settings.

Perception, benefits and barriers to community pharmacy vaccination services in Nigeria; a cross-sectional study of two south-western states

“…Most of the respondents were male. This is similar to previous study in Nigeria [15]. The mean age of respondents is also similar to previous studies [25].…”

“…Hence, most of the respondents have B.Pharm. as the highest level of education in compliance with other previous studies [15,26]. Most of the respondents also work at independent pharmacies as in previous studies [10,26].…”

“…The largest number of community pharmacists in Nigeria practice in Lagos state while Oyo state is third on the list in southwest, Nigeria, next to Ogun state [20]. Some individual community pharmacists had been involved in vaccination services at different levels while the pharmacy association had also encouraged the training and certi cation of their members [15,21].…”

Qualitative Analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of Professional Services by Community Pharmacies in Nigeria

“…With obvious capacity constraints, community pharmacists are saddled with human resource management, inventory management, financial management, relating with sales representatives, among others. This leaves them insufficient time to implement quality professional services (3.36) even though a recent study in South-South Nigeria found that time constraint was actually of insignificant consequence (Agbo, Esienumoh, Inah, Eko, & Nwachukwu, 2019). There is also the important challenge of attracting and retaining skilled workforce leading to high staff attrition rates (3.28) as already highlighted by previous evidence (Ekpenyong, Udoh, Kpokiri, & Bates, 2018).…”

Pharmacists’ Readiness to Receive, Recommend and Administer COVID-19 Vaccines in an African Country: an online multiple-practice settings survey in Nigeria

“…Oluwadamilola reported in a conference paper that almost all the community pharmacists that she contacted in Lagos, Nigeria, were willing to be trained and licensed to administer routine vaccines to the citizens 23 . Agbo et al also reported from Cross River State, Nigeria, that the only form of immunization that community pharmacists were involved in was client-requested prophylaxis that required dispensing of tetanus toxoid, rabies vaccines, and hepatitis B vaccine 24 . The pharmacists who responded to the study however expressed the readiness to participate in broader immunization services when they are permitted to do so by the appropriate authority.…”