Abstract:

Introduction: In most developing countries, Nigeria in particular, there is little equity and a clear lack of universal coverage of health care. Majority of the health seeking people first visit the community pharmacies when they are ill, before visiting the hospitals, yet a large percentage of Community Pharmacies are not registered with the National Health Insurance Scheme. The objective of the study was to assess the Knowledge, Attitude, Perception and Practice of the Health Insurance Scheme among Community Pharmacists in Lagos State, with the hope that it would serve as a baseline study towards improving Community Pharmacists’ involvement in the implementation of the Health Insurance Scheme.

Method: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out on 200 Community Pharmacists in Lagos State using a multi-staged stratified random sampling method and structured questionnaire. Analysis was done with Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 14.0 to obtain the frequencies, percentages and descriptive statistical results.

Result: Majority of the respondents were females (60%), in the age range of 41years and above (47%), without additional qualifications (70%), and 73% with more than 16 years post qualification experience. More than 80% had poor knowledge of the major guidelines and activities in Health Insurance Scheme while 86% were neither registered nor participating. Lack of integration among health care providers, lack of prescription from hospitals, need for cumbersome data, inadequate funding and training, lack of capitation for pharmacists were seen as the major hindrances to their participation.

Conclusion: The study revealed poor knowledge, attitude, perception and practice of the Health Insurance Scheme, among Community Pharmacists. Adequate training of community pharmacists and funding of the scheme, modifying the payment system to capitation as well as improving coordination, integration and standard of operation of the Health Insurance Scheme will improve their involvement.

Keywords: Community Pharmacists, Knowledge, Attitude, Perception, Practice, Health Insurance

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