Pharmacists' knowledge and practice regarding immunization in Ogun State, Southwest, Nigeria

Background: Immunization is a public health intervention aimed at reducing morbidity and mortality from vaccine-preventable infectious diseases. However, evidence suggests that vaccine coverage is low especially in developing countries including Nigeria. To improve vaccine uptake among the public, strategies including the inclusion of professional non-traditional vaccine administrators such as pharmacists in immunization schemes have been advocated. However, there is paucity of data on pharmacists' knowledge and practice of immunization in Nigeria.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the knowledge and practice of pharmacists regarding immunization in Osun State Southwestern Nigeria.

Methods: A quantitative cross-sectional study was carried out among consecutively selected pharmacists in purposively selected five local government areas in Ogun State, Southwest, Nigeria. A 30-item pre-tested questionnaire that explored the participants' socio-demographics, their knowledge and practice of immunization was administered to them in their respective places of work. Chi-square test was used to determine associations between respondents' socio-demographics and categorical variables of interest. A pvalue < 0.05 was considered significant.

Results: Of the 180 copies of the questionnaire distributed 145 (80.6%) were retrieved and analysed. Almost half of the respondents (71; 49.0%) were aged <30 years (mean age =35.43+0.28 years), 106 (73.1%) rated their participation in the distribution of immunization leaflet as <20%, 127 ( 87.6%) knew that the aged require immunization but many (104;71.7%) could not give reasons. There was no significant association between the length of practice and pharmacists' engagement on the immunization advisory committee (p= 0.196).

Conclusion: An appreciable proportion of the pharmacists who took part in the study had inadequate knowledge and engaged sub-optimally in immunization activities.