Community Pharmacists' Identifying and Counseling of Breastfeeding Women: A Study from Jordan.

BACKGROUND

This study explored the approaches of Jordanian community pharmacists to identifying and counseling breastfeeding mothers regarding medication usage.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study used self-administered questionnaires. A convenience sample (n=381) of Jordanian community pharmacists was recruited through social media. The responses were statistically analyzed using IBM SPSS ver. 25.0 (IBM Corp., USA).

RESULTS

The majority of recruited pharmacists were female (n=329, 86.4%). Asking every woman was Jordanian pharmacists' preferred approach to identifying breastfeeding women (n=211, 55.4%). The study showed that around one-third of the pharmacists (n=128, 33.6%) reported that they currently experienced queries regarding medication use during breastfeeding on a daily basis. Additionally, the majority (n=325, 85.3%) of pharmacists reported feeling confident, and 67.2% of them (n=256) reported feeling comfortable while giving advice to breastfeeding women. The surveyed pharmacists relied on different resources during their course of practice to answer queries related to medicine usage by breastfeeding mothers.

CONCLUSION

Community pharmacists have continuous interactions with breastfeeding women. Pharmacists require reliable and updated data access to answer queries related to medication use while breastfeeding.