Polo Luke Ede

Background: with absolute certainty, the growing number of people with end stage diseases such as cancer and life limiting illness has become a global health concern and therefore requires aparadigm shift into the provision of an effective palliative care which should encompass the contribution of all healthcare professionals regardless of the practice setting.Objective: The objective of this study is to explore and provide evidence of the role of clinical pharmacist in the palliative care of cancer patients in other to improve the quality of life of the patients. Method: This study is questionnaire-guided survey among registered pharmacists working in the two selected tertiary hospitals with established palliative care and cancer (oncology unit) services which are University of Benin and Central hospital, Benin City. Data was collected through the use of self-administered questionnaires from the post intern pharmacists of both hospitals. The questionnaire consists of five sections. Section A: captured demographic characteristics, years of experience in hospital practice, previous training in palliative care, as well as cadre/rank. SectionB: contains 18-item questions to evaluate the general knowledge of the clinical pharmacist in palliative care of cancer patients. Section C: evaluated opinion on relevant attitude-related statements toward palliative care. Section D contains item-statements that clarified the extent of involvement in some palliative care services in their respective practice site, while Section E:contains questions that explored possible factors that may hinder involvement in palliative care.All data collected were analyzed using the statistical package for social science (SPSS 21).Results: The association between pharmacistshospital of practice and attitude related statements showed a statistically significant difference of p< 0.05; indicating that there is no relationship between the hospital of practice of the pharmacists and their attitude towards palliative care of cancer patients. However, 78.9% of the pharmacists had inadequate general knowledge of palliative care, with almost two-thirds who had a misconception that