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An analysis of pharmacy workforce capacity in Nigeria

BACKGROUND: Pharmacists are critical for attaining the goal of universal health coverage and equitable access to essential health services, particularly in relation to access to medicines and medicines expertise. We describe an analysis of the pharmacy workforce in Nigeria from 2011 to 2016 in order...

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Autores principales: Ekpenyong, Aniekan, Udoh, Arit, Kpokiri, Eneyi, Bates, Ian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6120071/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30186611
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40545-018-0147-9
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author Ekpenyong, Aniekan
Udoh, Arit
Kpokiri, Eneyi
Bates, Ian
author_facet Ekpenyong, Aniekan
Udoh, Arit
Kpokiri, Eneyi
Bates, Ian
author_sort Ekpenyong, Aniekan
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Pharmacists are critical for attaining the goal of universal health coverage and equitable access to essential health services, particularly in relation to access to medicines and medicines expertise. We describe an analysis of the pharmacy workforce in Nigeria from 2011 to 2016 in order to gain insight on capacity and to inform pharmacy workforce planning and policy development in the country. METHOD: The study was conducted using census data obtained from the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) via a validated data collection tool. The statistical methods used for analysis were descriptive (frequencies, percentages, mean) and linear regression. Secondary data on population distribution per state was obtained from the Federal Bureau of Statistics and the National Population Commission (NPC) of Nigeria. RESULT: The data showed 21,892 registered pharmacists with only 59% (n = 12,807) in active professional practice. There are also more male (62%) compared to female pharmacists while 42% of the licensed workforce with known area of practice are in community practice followed by hospital pharmacy (11%). A rise in number of pharmacists (0.53–0.66) and new pharmacy graduates per year (0.062–0.083) per 10,000 population was observed over the five years analysed; however the overall density remains significantly low. Pharmacists’ density also varied considerably between states (Median = 0.39; Min - Max: 0.05–4.3). Regionally, more than a third (~ 40%) of the licensed workforce and community pharmacies are situated in the South West region with fewer than 10% of the total in the North East and North West regions combined. A steady decline in number of pharmacists requesting a “letter of good standing” from PCN, a proxy measure of intent to migrate was also observed. CONCLUSION: The data indicate ongoing deficits in availability and supply of pharmacists in the country with widespread variance in distribution observed across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The findings suggest that observed deficits are not solely related to out-migration and highlights the need for policies that will promote increased within-country availability, equitable distribution and retention, especially in the underserved regions of North East and North West of Nigeria. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s40545-018-0147-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-61200712018-09-05 An analysis of pharmacy workforce capacity in Nigeria Ekpenyong, Aniekan Udoh, Arit Kpokiri, Eneyi Bates, Ian J Pharm Policy Pract Research BACKGROUND: Pharmacists are critical for attaining the goal of universal health coverage and equitable access to essential health services, particularly in relation to access to medicines and medicines expertise. We describe an analysis of the pharmacy workforce in Nigeria from 2011 to 2016 in order to gain insight on capacity and to inform pharmacy workforce planning and policy development in the country. METHOD: The study was conducted using census data obtained from the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) via a validated data collection tool. The statistical methods used for analysis were descriptive (frequencies, percentages, mean) and linear regression. Secondary data on population distribution per state was obtained from the Federal Bureau of Statistics and the National Population Commission (NPC) of Nigeria. RESULT: The data showed 21,892 registered pharmacists with only 59% (n = 12,807) in active professional practice. There are also more male (62%) compared to female pharmacists while 42% of the licensed workforce with known area of practice are in community practice followed by hospital pharmacy (11%). A rise in number of pharmacists (0.53–0.66) and new pharmacy graduates per year (0.062–0.083) per 10,000 population was observed over the five years analysed; however the overall density remains significantly low. Pharmacists’ density also varied considerably between states (Median = 0.39; Min - Max: 0.05–4.3). Regionally, more than a third (~ 40%) of the licensed workforce and community pharmacies are situated in the South West region with fewer than 10% of the total in the North East and North West regions combined. A steady decline in number of pharmacists requesting a “letter of good standing” from PCN, a proxy measure of intent to migrate was also observed. CONCLUSION: The data indicate ongoing deficits in availability and supply of pharmacists in the country with widespread variance in distribution observed across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The findings suggest that observed deficits are not solely related to out-migration and highlights the need for policies that will promote increased within-country availability, equitable distribution and retention, especially in the underserved regions of North East and North West of Nigeria. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s40545-018-0147-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2018-09-03 /pmc/articles/PMC6120071/ /pubmed/30186611 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40545-018-0147-9 Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Ekpenyong, Aniekan
Udoh, Arit
Kpokiri, Eneyi
Bates, Ian
An analysis of pharmacy workforce capacity in Nigeria
title An analysis of pharmacy workforce capacity in Nigeria
title_full An analysis of pharmacy workforce capacity in Nigeria
title_fullStr An analysis of pharmacy workforce capacity in Nigeria
title_full_unstemmed An analysis of pharmacy workforce capacity in Nigeria
title_short An analysis of pharmacy workforce capacity in Nigeria
title_sort analysis of pharmacy workforce capacity in nigeria
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6120071/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30186611
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40545-018-0147-9
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