Pharmacist's Insights, Knowledge, and Attitudes towards Herbal Medicines and Herb-Drug Interactions (HDI's) in Pakistan: a Descriptive Cross-Sectional Survey

The present study was intended to assess the pharmacist's insights, knowledge, and attitudes towards herbal medicine and interactions between herbs and conventional medicines. A cross-sectional survey was conducted from July to December 2018. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed among pharmacists working in public and private sector hospitals of Sindh-Pakistan. Descriptive statistics and Pearson's chi-squared test were executed to demonstrate the participants' socio-demographic information, knowledge, and attitude regarding herb-drug interactions (HDI's). P value < 0.05 was considered as significant. The majority of the respondents were female (89%) while only 11% were male. The response rate was 72.2 %. The findings of the present study suggested that pharmacists often use herbal remedies personally and have a good attitude. But dispensing, and practice of herbal medicine and counseling the clients is rare. Hence, pharmacists should provide explicit education of the natural product regarding safety, product quality as well as training to improve their knowledge and awareness regarding HDI's.