Background: The declaration of COVID-19 a pandemic by the World Health Organisation on the 11March 2020 marked the beginning of a global health crisis of an unprecedented natureand scale. The approach taken by countries across the world varied widely, however,the delivery of frontline healthcare was consistently recognised as being central to thepandemic response. This study aimed to identify and explore the issues currentlyfacing pharmacy teams across Commonwealth countries during the COVID-19pandemic. The study also evaluates pharmacy professionals’ understanding of keyknowledge areas from the COVID-19 webinar hosted by the CommonwealthPharmacists’ Association ( CPA) on 5 th June 2020.MethodA quantitative survey-based approach was adopted, using a 32-item questionnairedeveloped from the literature on pharmacy and pandemic response. The survey washosted on Survey Monkey and pilot tested. The final survey was disseminated by CPAmember organisations. A 6-item online questionnaire was sent via email to allattendees of CPA's COVID-19 webinar. Descriptive statistics on frequency distributionsand percentages were used to analyse the responses. Data were analysed usingMicrosoft® Excel (2010).ResultsThere were 545 responses from pharmacy professionals across 31/54 commonwealthcountries in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Pacific. Majority of therespondents reported being at least somewhat worried (90%) and more than 65% werevery worried or extremely about the impact of COVID-19 on them personally andprofessionally. Nearly two-thirds of respondents stated finding it somewhat difficult orvery difficult to work effectively during the pandemic. Challenges mostly faced bypharmacy professionals working remotely included;general anxiety about the impact ofCOVID-19 on their lives (12%), and difficulties in communicating with their co-workers(12%). Most pharmacy professionals had not previously been actively involved in aglobal health emergency (82%) nor obtained training on global/public healthemergency preparedness (62%). Between 45% to 97% of the COVID-19 webinarattendees provided the correct answers to post-webinar questions, suggesting someimprovement in knowledge.ConclusionOur study confirms pharmacy professional’s concerns about practice during apandemic and provides preliminary data on the challenges and learning needs of theprofession. The CPA has since acted on these findings, providing on-goingopportunities to develop and refine resources for the profession as the pandemicevolves. Pharmacy professionals have also demonstrated improved knowledge on themanagement of COVID-19 and resources available for professionals.
COVID-19: Needs assessment of the pharmacy profession and contributions so far across the Commonwealth