Are Hospital Pharmacists Ready for Precision Medicine in Nigerian Healthcare? Insights From a Multi-Center Study

Precision medicine (PM) has taken center stage in healthcare since the completion of the genomic project. Developed countries have gradually integrated PM into mainstream patient management. However, Nigeria still grapples with wide acceptance, key translational research and implementation of PM. This study sought to explore the knowledge and attitude of PM among pharmacists as key stakeholders in the healthcare team.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in selected tertiary hospitals across the country. A 21-item semi-structured questionnaire was administered by hybrid online and physical methods and the results analyzed with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Version 25. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data. A chi-square test was employed to determine the association of knowledge of PM and the sociodemographic characteristics of the study population.

A total of 167 hospital pharmacists participated in the study. A high proportion of the participants are familiar with artificial intelligence (91.75%), Pharmacogenomics (84.5%), and precision medicine (61%). Overall, 38.9% of the pharmacists had a good knowledge while 13.2% had a poor knowledge of PM and associated terms. The level of knowledge did not correlate significantly with gender (X ² = 3.21, p = 0.201), age (X ² = 5, p = 0.27), marital status (X ² = 3.21, p = 0.201), and professional level (X ² = 6.85, p = 0.144). The most important value of precision medicine to hospital pharmacists is the ability to minimize the impact of disease through preventive medicine (49%) while a large portion are pursuing and or actively planning to pursue additional education in precision medicine.

There is a highly positive attitude toward the prospect of PM among hospital pharmacists in Nigeria. Education modules in this field are highly recommended as most do not have a holistic knowledge of terms used in PM. Also, more research aimed at translating PM knowledge into clinical practice is recommended.