Knowledge and practice of community pharmacists towards SGLT2 inhibitors

Background: Sodium/glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors are a new class of oral anti-diabetic drugs which improve glycaemic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) by preventing the kidney from reabsorbing glucose back to blood. Community pharmacists have long-term relationships with most of their chronic patients, so they play a key role in care for people with diabetes. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess pharmacists' knowledge and practice towards SGLT2 inhibitors. Thus, improving pharmacists' knowledge about this group of medications could improve the treatment outcome of people with diabetes. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to meet the study objectives. A convenience sample of 348 community pharmacists in Jordan was recruited. knowledge and practice were assessed using a self-administered questionnaire created for the purpose of this study. Results: A total of 400 community pharmacists were reached, of whom 348 answered the survey (response rate 87%). The results indicated that SGLT2 inhibitors knowledge score among community pharmacists in Jordan was 6.61 (out of 12). Factors like age, gender, location of the pharmacy, years of pharmacists' experience had no effect on knowledge score; however, pharmacists who attended training courses on diabetes had higher knowledge scores. Additionally, pharmacists' dispensing practice toward SGLT2 inhibitors had insufficient knowledge, such as lack of knowledge about the superiority of SGLT2 inhibitors over other anti-diabetics and inability to give the best advice to patients. Conclusions: Our findings reflect a moderate knowledge among community pharmacists about SGLT2 inhibitors which may negatively affect the patients' outcome; thus, continuous education for the pharmacists is essential.