Background: Pharmacists can play an important role in hypertension treatment by helping patients improve their chances of reaching therapeutic and lifestyle goals. This study aimed to assess hospital pharmacists’ knowledge of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and their practice of primary prevention of CVD. This was a prospective cross sectional survey of all the Hospital pharmacists in Federal Medical Centre Lokoja (FMCL), and Kogi State Specialist Hospital (KSSH) both in Lokoja L.G.A of Kogi State Nigeria. A Questionnaire on diagnostic cut-off for common cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and practice of primary prevention of CVD was used for the study. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS for windows, Version 16.0. SPSS Inc. 2007.Chicago, USA) software was used for data analysis. Continuous data were presented as mean± standard deviation while categorical data were presented as percentages and frequencies.
Results: About half, 20(46.5) of the hospital pharmacist were less than 40 years with a mean age of 43.44 years. The hospital pharmacist had poor knowledge of diagnostic cut-off for common cardiovascular disease risk factors. Also, the hospital pharmacists had poor practice of primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases. Age, gender and years of practice were associated with knowledge of CVD risk factors while age alone was associated with practice of primary prevention of CVD.
Conclusion: Hospital pharmacists in Kogi state have a poor knowledge of CVD risk factors and also a poor practice of primary prevention of CVD.