Pharmacognostic Training Needs Assessment Among Community Pharmacists in Lagos State: Implications for Continuing Education

Community pharmacists in Lagos State, South West Nigeria, occupy a strategic position in guiding the public on safe herbal medicine use, yet the adequacy of their pharmacognostic knowledge base and training needs in this domain are poorly defined. This study conducts a training needs assessment focused on pharmacognosy competencies among community pharmacists in Lagos State. A structured self-administered questionnaire assessing perceived and objectively measured competency across six pharmacognostic domains, including herbal product quality evaluation, herb-drug interactions, adverse drug reaction recognition, adulteration detection, regulatory frameworks, and plant identification, was administered to 175 community pharmacists randomly selected from the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria Lagos State branch register. Perceived competency levels were high across most domains, but objective knowledge test scores indicated significant deficiencies in adulteration detection, HPTLC interpretation, and WHO quality control methods. Pharmacists who graduated before 2015 and those without post-qualification training showed the greatest knowledge gaps. Herb-drug interaction counselling was identified by 84% of respondents as the area of highest priority for continuing professional development. Core competency standards are largely absent from current continuing professional education curricula. This study provides an evidence-based training needs profile to guide the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria and university pharmacognosy departments in developing targeted continuing education programmes for Lagos State community pharmacists. Keywords: community pharmacists, training needs, pharmacognosy, Lagos, continuing education