Pharmacist expertise may be used to advance nutrition, prevent disease: study

Pharmacists may play a significant role in advancing population-based nutrition care particularly related to chronic conditions, suggests a study.

“We believe that our analysis justifies and strengthens the inevitability to benefit from pharmacists’ expertise to comprehensively improve the quality-of-care outcomes achieved by healthcare systems, and yes, pharmacists indeed should be eligible partners in this process,” the authors said.

A total of 1,412 respondents were screened, of whom 667 pharmacists (573 females) participated in the study. The Dietary Habits Nutrition Beliefs Questionnaire, a validated survey, was used for the evaluation.

Most pharmacists (94 percent) were current nonsmokers with body mass index levels <25 kg/m² (66.5 percent). Female pharmacists had higher Pro-Healthy (pHDI-10) score (p<0.001) and lower Non-Healthy (nHDI-14) score (p=0.004) than their male counterparts.

In the self-assessment of nutritional habits, the pHDI-10 score was significantly higher in the “very good” group than the “poor” (p<0.001) and the “very poor” (p=0.015) groups, while the “poor group” had higher nHDI-14 score than the “very good” (p<0.001) and “good” (p<0.001) groups.

Moreover, the nutrition knowledge test score was above average in about 72 percent of respondents and was associated with pHDI-10 (r, 0.16). However, the score decreased with age (r, –0.19).

“Pharmacists with around-the-clock accessibility should be eligible partners, as members of an interdisciplinary team, in the process of advancing population-based nutrition,” the authors said.