Health Promotion Practice: A Cross-sectional Study among Community Pharmacists in Baghdad, Iraq

Background: The role of community pharmacists goes beyond dispensing of medicines; it includes health promotion (HP) and prevention of chronic disease. Objectives: To evaluate the level of HP among community pharmacies in Baghdad and determine the associated factors and barriers to this practice. Methods: The current investigation was a cross-sectional study conducted among community pharmacists in Baghdad, Iraq. An online questionnaire was used to collect data, and participants were recruited using convenience sampling. An HP score was calculated to quantify this practice. To analyze differences in HP practice between demographic groups, descriptive statistics and independent t-tests were used. Barriers were examined using exploratory factor analysis. Results: Data were collected from 670 pharmacists who completed questionnaires. The mean HP practice score was 4.1+1.16, which indicates moderate engagement in HP. Significant differences in HP scores were observed by pharmacy location and employment type, but not by gender. Most pharmacists reported providing HP activities daily (79.4%), the most common being adherence counselling (95.8%) and verbal education on the use of medicines (67.8%). There were three crucial categories of barriers to engagement in HP related to “the patient,” "organizational," and “lack of training.” Conclusions: Community pharmacists in Baghdad showed moderate engagement in HP activities, with greater involvement in medication counselling and less in other preventive services. Effective organizational policies, training, and the addition of systematic HP policies are necessary to improve public health practice by pharmacists in Iraq.