Exploring Attitude, Knowledge of Community-Setting Pharmacist Regarding Calcium Supplementation Associated with Cardiovascular Risk

High calcium intake, which is thought to increase the risk of myocardial infarction, stroke, and cardiovascular mortality as well as non-cardiovascular events like kidney stones, is being consumed by a large portion of the general population, raising questions about the cardiovascular effects of calcium supplementation. It is crucial to educate healthcare professionals, especially pharmacists in community settings, on the long-term use of calcium supplements linked to cardiovascular risk in order to address this rapidly expanding issue. In our 3 months cross sectional survey total 500 community -setting pharmacists were included from various types of pharmacy including independent and chain pharmacy shops situated in 5 districts of Tamil Nadu. A self-administered validated questionnaire was used to assess the attitude, knowledge of community-setting pharmacist regarding calcium Supplementation associated with cardiovascular risk. It was observed that most of the community pharmacists gave a negative response (53.71%) to all the questions asked. While the percentage of uncertainty (don't know, 35.48%) regarding the answers for the questions closely followed the negative responses, the positive responses remained largely lower (10.4%). Our study reveals that many of the community-setting pharmacists are need to be educated on calcium supplementation and its risk concerning the burden of public health

Key words: [Pharmacist, Community, Community Pharmacist, Calcium, Attitude, Knowledge]