Determination of food-drug interaction knowledge levels of pharmacists and senior pharmacy students.

BACKGROUND: Food-drug interactions (FDIs) arise when a pharmaceutical and a botanical or dietary supplement food or nutrient interact physically, chemically, or physiologically. Pharmacists play key role in detecting and managing of FDIs. This study examined factors affecting licensed pharmacists and senior pharmacy students' FDI knowledge and understanding. In senior pharmacy students, short- and long-term training effects on FDI knowledge were evaluated. METHODS: A validated Turkish FDI Knowledge Scale test was provided to the respondents online. After the scale had been implemented for the first time to the senior pharmacy students, a verbal face-to-face training session was organized to investigate the effects of the training on the FDI knowledge levels. After training, the same scale was administered two more times on different time points to reveal the effect of training in short and long term. A binary logistic regression identified characteristics affecting participants' good or very good scale-based FDI knowledge scores. RESULTS: The study has 356 participants. The participants' age was 28.99 ± 7.79 years. Based on participants' current education level, senior pharmacy students had the lowest mean FDI knowledge score (9.23 ± 3.78), while having a specialty in pharmacy degree or being in continuum had the highest (17.00 ± 2.73). The knowledge scores were compared based on the pharmacists' frequency of providing counsel on FDIs and the never-counselled group (8.80 ± 4.18) had the lowest while the often-counselled group had the highest score (14.28 ± 3.68). Age and working experience positively correlated with FDI knowledge score (Spearman's coefficient for age 0.354; for working experience 0.419; p < 0.001). After senior pharmacy students were trained on FDIs, the mean knowledge score increased significantly (p < 0.001) (pre-training mean knowledge score was 8.85 ± 3.57, after-training short-term 16.24 ± 3.15) and remained the same after-training long-term 16.67 ± 2.59 (p = 0.307). Being female (Odds ratio [OR] 1.842; 95% Confidence interval [CI] 1.027-3.302) and having a good self-perception of FDI knowledge (OR 18.311; CI 95% 4.879-68.718) affected the achievement of a good or very good scale-based FDI knowledge scores significantly. CONCLUSION: As senior pharmacists had the lowest while specialty in pharmacy degree or being in continuum had the highest FDI knowledge levels, this study suggests adding an FDI course to the pharmacy undergraduate curriculum and in-service training for licensed pharmacists to foster the FDI knowledge of pharmacists.