Pharmacists’ Knowledge of Factors Associated with Dementia: The A-to-Z Dementia Knowledge List

Hernán Ramos, Lucrecia Moreno, María Gil, Gemma García-Lluch, José Sendra-Lillo and Mónica Alacreu
Additional contact information
Hernán Ramos: Cátedra DeCo MICOF-CEU UCH, Universidad Cardenal Herrera-CEU, 46115 Valencia, Spain
Lucrecia Moreno: Cátedra DeCo MICOF-CEU UCH, Universidad Cardenal Herrera-CEU, 46115 Valencia, Spain
María Gil: Cátedra DeCo MICOF-CEU UCH, Universidad Cardenal Herrera-CEU, 46115 Valencia, Spain
Gemma García-Lluch: Cátedra DeCo MICOF-CEU UCH, Universidad Cardenal Herrera-CEU, 46115 Valencia, Spain
José Sendra-Lillo: Cátedra DeCo MICOF-CEU UCH, Universidad Cardenal Herrera-CEU, 46115 Valencia, Spain
Mónica Alacreu: Cátedra DeCo MICOF-CEU UCH, Universidad Cardenal Herrera-CEU, 46115 Valencia, Spain

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 19, 1-18

Abstract: Dementia is a neurodegenerative disease with no cure that can begin up to 20 years before its diagnosis. A key priority in patients with dementia is the identification of early modifiable factors that can slow the progression of the disease. Community pharmacies are suitable points for cognitive-impairment screening because of their proximity to patients. Therefore, the continuous training of professionals working in pharmacies directly impacts the public health of the population. The main purpose of this study was to assess community pharmacists’ knowledge of dementia-related factors. Thus, we conducted a cross-sectional study of 361 pharmacists via an online questionnaire that quizzed their knowledge of a list of dementia-related factors, which we later arranged into the A-to-Z Dementia Knowledge List. We found that younger participants had a better knowledge of risk factors associated with dementia. The risk factors most often identified were a family history of dementia followed by social isolation. More than 40% of the respondents did not identify herpes labialis, sleep more than 9 h per day, and poor hearing as risk factors. A higher percentage of respondents were better able to identify protective factors than risk factors. The least known protective factors were internet use, avoidance of pollution, and the use of anti-inflammatory drugs. Pharmacists’ knowledge of dementia-related factors should be renewed with the aim of enhancing their unique placement to easily implement cognitive-impairment screening.

Keywords: knowledge; dementia; pharmacist; risk factors; protective factors; pharmaceutical drugs; cognitive impairment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/19/9934/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/19/9934/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:19:p:9934-:d:640227

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().