Abstract

Pharmacists play a central role in caring of diabetic patients. During patient-centered care, important ethical issues and conflicts may arise, which makes ethical skills for pharmacist important toward conflict-resolution so this study aimed to assess compliance of Iraqi pharmacists with ethical principles while providing their care to diabetic patients. A cross sectional study by a validated questionnaire format was given to a convenient sample of 95 community pharmacists in Baghdad—Iraq. The questionnaire assesses the ethical practices of each pharmacist by using indirect questions through a simulated case which is commonly encountered in private pharmacies in Iraq. Most participated pharmacists failed to respect patient autonomy and they are not encouraging their patients to participate in decision making about their treatment. Participated pharmacists also failed in applying ethical principle of veracity during educating the patient about serious drug side effects. Furthermore most pharmacists had financial conflict of interests that undermine the pharmacist ability to fulfill the primary professional and ethical obligation to ensure patient's beneficence, justice and autonomy. Meanwhile most participated pharmacist may be good in maintaining their professional competence, yet the majority failed to develop their competence by keeping their knowledge up to-dated. In conclusion pharmacists failed to apply ethical principles during their usual care for diabetic patients.