Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Obesity is a growing health concern in Albania. Obesity has been identified as a key risk factor for many chronic diseases including hypertension, dyslipidaemia and type 2 diabetes mellitus. This study was conducted to investigate the role of community pharmacists in obesity counselling, and to identify the barriers to counselling in Albania.

Methods: It was used a descriptive cross-sectional study involved ten community pharmacies that were selected via stratified and systematic random sampling. A pretested self-administered questionnaire collected information on frequency and comfort level with obesity counselling, and the perceived effectiveness of four aspects of obesity management (diet and exercise, prescribed antiobesity medications, diet foods, and nonprescription products and dietary supplements). Information on perceived confidence in achieving positive outcomes as a result of counselling and barriers to counselling was also collected. Descriptive and Spearman’ r analysis were conducted using SPSS version 17. Responses with Likert scale rating 1(low score) to 5 (high score) and binary choices (yes/no) were presented as mean (S.D.) and (95% CI), respectively.

Results: The response rate was 83.6%. The overall mean (S.D.) responses indicated that pharmacists counselled obese patients sometimes to most of the time, 3.67 (1.19) and were neutral to comfortable with counselling about aspects of obesity management, 3.77 (1.19). Respondents perceived obesity management aspects to be somewhat effective, 3.80 (1.05). Of the four aspects of obesity management, diet and exercise, and diet foods were the highest ranked in terms of frequency of counselling, comfort level and perceived effectiveness. Pharmacists were neutral to confident in achieving positive outcomes as a result of obesity counselling, 3.44 (1.09). Overall mean responses of counselling obese patients by pharmacists were positively correlated with their perceived comfort with counseling and perceived effectiveness of obesity management aspects. The most anticipated barriers to obesity counselling were lack of patient awareness about pharmacists’ expertise in counselling and pharmacists’ opinions that obese patients lack willpower and are non-adherent to weight reduction interventions.

Conclusions: Strengths, weaknesses and barriers related to obesity counselling by pharmacists in Albania were identified, and suggestions were provided to strengthen that role.