assessment of training of community pharmacists towards the prevention of covid-19 in a north central state of nigeria

Background: community pharmacists (cps) are key providers of basic healthcare in communities, and barriers that may hinder enormous results in their role during the covid-19 pandemic should be addressed. we conducted a training on the strategies for strengthening the infection prevention and control (ipc) among cps. methods: participants were 31 cps in ilorin, kwara state. a quasi-experimental, before-and-after study was carried out. data were captured using a self-administered questionnaire. the questionnaire had three sections; the first contained sociodemographic characteristics such as sex, age, and years of practice. the second section contained eight questions used to assess the knowledge of the respondents, each was assigned a score of “1” and the total obtainable score was “8”. the third section identified the role of cps in the prevention of covid-19. results: the mean age of the 31 cps who participated in the training was 49.5 ± 13.7 years, and 18 (58.1%) were males. the mean pre-test ipc training score was 4.968±1.329, while the mean post-test ipc training score was 5.323±1.077, (t=-1.611, p=0.118). all respondents identified that cps had roles in the prevention of covid-19. among them, 27 (87.1%) identified community health awareness campaigns as their main role in the prevention of covid-19. regarding years of practice, 6 (35.3%) respondents with less than 20 years had covid-19 ipc knowledge gain compared to 10 (71.4%) others with more than 20 and above years of practice (p=0.04). conclusion: the training achieved its short-term objective. there is a need to for supervisory visits on the cps at their place of practice to ensure knowledge acquired is put to the best use.