Affiliations 

  • 1 Department Pharmacology, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Federal University Dutse, Nigeria
  • 2 School of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia
  • 3 University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy, Columbia, South Carolina, USA
  • 4 School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia
  • 5 Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Bayero University Kano, Nigeria
  • 6 Malaria Consortium, Jigawa State Office, Nigeria
  • 7 Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria
  • 8 School of Global Health and Bioethics, Euclid University, Gambia
  • 9 Jigawa State Hospital Services, Dutse, Nigeria
  • 10 Department of Family Medicine, Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano, Nigeria
Toxicon X, 2020 Dec;8:100064.
PMID: 33319211 DOI: 10.1016/j.toxcx.2020.100064

Abstract

Antisnake venom (ASV) is the only specific and standard treatment for snakebite envenoming worldwide. The knowledge of antivenom dosage, mode of administration, availability, and logistics is essential to the healthcare practitioners (HCPs) in the management of snakebites. It is vital for the HCPs involved in the handling of ASVs to have its basic knowledge. The ASV contains proteins and can, therefore, easily get denatured if not handled appropriately, leading to poor therapeutic outcome. It is also essential for clinicians to be aware of the tendency of ASV to cause a severe life-threatening hypersensitivity reaction. There is currently no validated tool for assessing the knowledge of ASV among HCPs. Therefore, we developed and validated a tool for evaluating the HCPs knowledge of ASV. The items included in the tool were first generated from a comprehensive literature review. Face validity were conducted by presenting the drafted tool to ten experts on the subject matter. A validation study was conducted among doctors, pharmacists, nurses, pharmacy technicians, and the general public. The objectives of the study were to test the tool for content validity using the content validity index (CVI), construct validity using contrast group approach, difficulty index, readability, and reliability test using the test-retest method. We developed and validated a final tool containing thirty-three items. The tool was valid for face validity and had a scale-level (average) content validity (S-CVI/Ave) of 0.91. The ASV knowledge of pharmacists was higher than that of doctors, pharmacy technicians, nurses, and the general public (p 

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.