Background information
The number of patients living with or surviving cancer increases with better treatment options, raising a need for more healthcare options ensuring their support. The community pharmacy staff are easily accessible healthcare providers who can play an important role in counselling cancer patients and survivors. However, the information on how well pharmacy staff is prepared to do that is sparse.
Purpose
This study mapped the Danish community pharmacy staff’s self-perceived knowledge and educational needs regarding cancer treatments. Furthermore, it investigated which barriers pharmacy staff experience when communicating with cancer patients and survivors. The results of the study will supplement another project aiming at developing a healthcare service targeting late effects in cancer patients and survivors at Danish community pharmacies.
Method
An online survey was conducted. The questionnaire was developed and thoroughly piloted; besides demographics, it consisted of 21 questions on knowledge and educational needs, and 14 barrier statements. The participants indicated their responses on a 5-point Likert scale. A link to the questionnaire was distributed to community pharmacy staff in Denmark via social media, and publicly available emails of the 185 pharmacies in Denmark. Data was collected in November 2021. The results were analysed descriptively, for knowledge and educational needs questions the Likert scale response options were given numbers from 1 (no knowledge/not important) to 5 (in-depth knowledge/extremely important) and mean values were calculated. For barrier statements, the percentages agreeing with each statement was calculated. Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians responses were compared using independent samples t-test; p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results
In total, 134 community pharmacy staff (79 pharmacists, 51 pharmacy technicians and 4 pharmacy interns), 5.0 % of all community pharmacy staff in Denmark, completed the questionnaire. Community pharmacy staff’s mean self-perceived knowledge of the different topics related to cancer treatments ranged between 2.10 and 3.37. For 47.6 % of the topics, pharmacists reported having statistically significantly more knowledge than the pharmacy technicians. The most well-known topics concerned risk factors for cancer and side effects from cancer treatments; the least known topic was cancer prevalence and incidence. The staff’s mean importance of learning more about the 21 topics ranged between 2.73 and 4.40. There were no statistically significant difference between pharmacists and pharmacy technicians for the importance of learning more about any of the topics. The topic of drug interactions during cancer treatment was rated most important to know more about. The three statements that most participants perceived as barriers when counselling cancer patients in community pharmacies were: lack of training possibilities for staff regarding cancer and cancer treatments (91.0 %); and communication with cancer patients (89.6%), as well as community pharmacies traditionally not focusing on cancer patients but other health problems (75.4 %). Pharmacy staff expressed interest in participating in educational programs about cancer and cancer treatment (91.0 %), communication with cancer patients (88.1 %), and late effects of cancer (93.3 %).
Conclusion
The study found that community pharmacy staff in Denmark are in need of and interested in more education in relation to cancer treatments. Lack of training possibilities and educational needs are important barriers that should be addressed when developing a healthcare services in community pharmacies targeting cancer patients and survivors.