KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE OF COMMUNITY PHARMACY PERSONNEL ABOUT IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL TRACK AND TRACE SYSTEM, IN TURKEY

Abstract

Pharmaceutical Track and Trace System (PTTS) is a successful implementation of Track and Trace approach which has been applied since 2010 in Turkey. Briefly, it defines the infrastructure framework for all units belonging to each product and works by using the Datamatrix code, which provides the sureness of the uniqueness. The aim of this study was to evaluate the community pharmacy personnel's attitudes and knowledge about the PTTS, in order to reveal their expectations and identify problems thereof. 56 community pharmacies located in Beyoglu district of Istanbul, Turkey (n = 120) were included. The data were collected from 15th - 30th of April 2017 by a structured questionnaire. Besides evaluating descriptive statistics, chi(2) test was conducted to analyse relationship between demographics and knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the pharmacy personnel, respectively. This study shows that PTTS is found useful especially for providing drug safety and facilitating and accelerating the recall of the drugs.