Community pharmacists' knowledge, attitudes and practices towards oral healthcare and its management: A systematic review

BACKGROUND: Community pharmacists play a significant part in providing oral healthcare advice as there are significant connections between oral healthcare and body system healthcare.

OBJECTIVE: To systematically review the literature regarding the knowledge, attitudes and practice of community pharmacists in managing oral healthcare problems.

METHODS: A systematic review was conducted through Scopus, PubMed and Google Scholar databases. Studies regarding knowledge, attitudes and practice of management of dental care by community pharmacists between 1990 and 2019 were included.

RESULTS: Forest plot was performed to access knowledge, attitudes and practice of community pharmacist on oral healthcare. The results showed there were 44% of community pharmacists have a lack of knowledge on oral healthcare to provide an appropriate recommendation to patients with dental problems. Eighty-eight per cent of community pharmacists were willing to improve their knowledge of oral healthcare. There were 86% of them recognised that their role was significant in oral health. However, there were 59% of community pharmacists who had poor attitude in providing oral health information.

CONCLUSIONS: Community pharmacists were lacking knowledge on oral health mainly because of paucity in providing appropriate training courses. This has led to poor practices towards oral healthcare as they were unable to provide suitable products recommendations to the patients. This has led the community pharmacists into lack of attitudes in providing oral health information. However, most of the community pharmacists were conscious of their role in the oral healthcare system and were willing to improve their knowledge of oral healthcare.