Abstract
Pharmacies dispensing of returned medicines by another patient could be risky to other patients especially if the drug was damaged. This study aimed to assess pharmacy employees' knowledge, attitude , and practice toward re-dispensing unused and unwanted medicines returned by patients in Trip-oli, Libya. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in September 2021 targeting a total of 47 community pharmacies in Tripoli, Libya. Data were collected by face-to-face interview using self-designed questionnaire containing queries about refunding and re-dispensing unused and unwanted medicines in community pharmacies. Data were presented as descriptive statistics. Results showed that, out of 47 visited pharmacies, a total of 41 (87.1%) pharmacists were participated in the study, with one pharmacist being interviewed in each pharmacy. About 51% of participants had a pharmacy education certification, while 49% had either Medical or English language certification. Approximately 92.7% of the participants didn't know about the presence of any guideline related to returning unused and unwanted medicines, whereas 3(7.3%) participants said that they know about these guidelines. Additionally, only 1(2.5%) of participant properly explained the WHO instruction of accepting re-tuned medicines. About 80.5% of the participants accept medicines returned from patients while 19.5% did not, and approximately 80.5% re-dispense those medicines to other patients. Meanwhile, 36.6% accepted the unwanted medicines, and 61% re-dispense those medicines. In conclusion, a substantial proportion of pharmacy personnel leak to the knowledge and attitude toward return unused and unwanted medicines, s