AIM: This study aims to compare medical and pharmacy students' perceived preparedness, learning practices and usefulness of the education and training on antibiotic use and resistance imparted during undergraduate studies in Pakistan.
DESIGN AND SETTING: It was amulti-centre cross-sectional survey of medical and pharmacy colleges in Punjab, Pakistan.
METHOD: A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from final year medical and pharmacy students. Descriptive statistics were used for categorical variables while independent t-test and One-way ANOVA computed group differences.
RESULT: Nine hundred forty-eight respondents (526 medical and 422 pharmacy students) completed the survey from 26 medical and 19 pharmacy colleges. Majority (76.1%) of the pharmacy students had not completed a clinical rotation in infectious diseases. The top three most often used sources of learning antibiotic use and resistance were the same among the medical and the pharmacy students; included textbooks, Wikipedia, and smart phone apps. Overall self-perceived preparedness scores showed no significant difference between pharmacy and medical students. The least prepared areas by medical and pharmacy students included transition from intravenous to oral antibiotics and interpretation of antibiograms. Both medical and pharmacy students found problem solving sessions attended by a small group of students to be the most useful (very useful) teaching methodology to learn antibiotic use and resistance.
CONCLUSIONS: Differences exist between medical and pharmacy students in educational resources used, topics covered during undergraduate degree. To curb the growing antibiotic misuse and resistance, the concerned authorities should undertake targeted educational reforms to ensure that future physicians and pharmacists can play a pivotal role in rationalizing the use of antibiotics.
METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the six universities in Sri Lanka that offer pharmacy undergraduate programmes. All pharmacy students in each university were invited to participate in this study using a self-administered questionnaire with ethics approval. The study instrument comprised five major sections: demographic information, self-reported antibiotic use, knowledge of antibiotic uses in human health, knowledge of AMR and antibiotic use in agriculture. Descriptive data analyses were conducted and Chi-squared analysis was used to explore associations between different variables and level of pharmacy education.
RESULTS: Four hundred sixty-six pharmacy students completed the questionnaire. A majority of participants (76%) reported antibiotic use in the past year. More than half (57%) of the junior pharmacy students incorrectly indicated that antibiotic use is appropriate for the management of cold and flu conditions. Senior pharmacy students (n = 206) reported significantly better antibiotic knowledge than junior students (n = 260), p
METHOD: A descriptive cross-sectional community-based study was conducted among 1280 randomly selected participants. Respondents were sent a web-based electronic link to the survey via email. Content validity, factor analyses and known group validity were used to develop and validate a new scale to identify falsified hand sanitizer. Test-retest reliability, internal consistency, item internal consistency (IIC), and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were used to assess the reliability of the scale. SPSS version 24 was used to conduct data analysis.
RESULTS: A total of 1280 participants were enrolled in the study. The content validity index (CVI) was 0.83 with the final scale of 12 items. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value was 0.788, with the Bartlett test of sphericity achieving statistical significance (p
METHODS: Primarily the questions were generated in English. Face and content validity were performed by five experts in Pharmacy Practice and Medicine. A translation as per guidelines into Malay language was performed; followed by face-to-face interview of 96 lay public in Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia. For internal consistency, reliability was assessed utilizing Cronbach's alpha.
RESULTS: The mean ± SD of the awareness and action towards heart attack symptoms and risk factors was 65.52 ± 6.3, with a good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.75), whereas the mean of the awareness and action towards stroke symptoms and risk factors was 61.93 ± 7.11, with an accepted internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.86).
CONCLUSION: The current validation research showed that the developed questionnaire is valid and reliable for assessing the awareness and action towards symptoms and risk factors of heart attack and stroke among lay public in Malaysia.
AIM: The main objective of this study is to assess the knowledge level of medical students at Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (UniSZA) regarding the emergence of HMPX. Additionally, the study aims to investigate potential associations between socio-demographic characteristics and knowledge levels, while also identifying factors that predict a high level of knowledge in this context..
METHODS: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among UniSZA undergraduatemedical students from Year 1 to Year 5. A validated questionnaire comprising six socio-demographic variables and 27 knowledge items was shared online. Descriptive statistics, non-parametric tests and multivariate logistic regression were performed using SPSS software.
RESULTS: A total of 138 medical students out of 300 participated in this study. Overall, the average knowledge score was 73.95% ±4.43, which indicates that the medical students have moderate knowledge level. Nearly half of them had good knowledge level (n= 68; 49.3%), 43 of them had moderate knowledge level (31.2%), and 27 of them had poor knowledge level (19.6%). There was a significant association between knowledge level and two factors: receiving information on HMPX during their education and seniority (P-value < 0.01 and P-value < 0.05, respectively). Besides, received information on HMPX during their education was a significant predicting factor of good knowledge level (P-value = 0.002).
CONCLUSION: The knowledge level among the medical students was relatively inadequate.
METHODS: A systematic and comprehensive articles search strategy was carried out in different seven electronic databases (PubMed, PubMed Central, Goggle Scholar, Ovid-SP, MEDLINE, Wiley Online Library, DergiPark) from 2010 to 2020. We searched to identify existing literature about cross-sectional observational studies investigating the KAP of HCPs regarding PV and ADRs reporting in different geographical regions of Turkey. Quality assessment and risk of bias were assessed among included studies.
RESULTS: Fifteen studies were chosen for full-text analysis. Finally, according to inclusion criteria, seven research articles were selected for systematic review. Overall, the KAP of HCPs varies across the studies. The lack of a standardized validated measuring tool to evaluate the KAP and differences in questionnaire items were the main limitations in included studies. Around, 69.1% (range: 54.6-100%) of HCPs were not aware of the national pharmacovigilance center in Turkey. About, 37.5% (range: 7.1-75.7%) of HCPs believed that reporting of ADRs is not important and 87.5% (range: 69.3-100%) stated that they never reported ADR previously during their practice. The most frequently highlighted barriers to PV were lack of time, uncertainty and did not know where to report.
CONCLUSION: This systematic review revealed a major KAP gap in Turkey towards PV activities. Low ADR reporting practice of HCPs was a major identified issue. The creation of a mandatory unified PV education intervention for future HCPs to rationally report ADR of drugs are crucial for a better healthcare system.
Methods: The current study was cross-sectional population-based and used a convenient sampling technique. Moreover, Lorenz's formula was used to calculate the sample size and the required sample size was 480. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews with a pre-validated questionnaire and the study was conducted in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). Descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation, and logistic regression were executed by using SPSS version 24.
Results: Out of 480 participants, 45.8% were polled male and the prevalence of SMA in this study was found to be 15.1%. The majority of participants 23.1% indicated that they practiced antibiotics at least once in the last six months. The commonly self-medicated antibiotics were amoxicillin-clavulanate 20.6%, ampicillin/cloxacillin 14.2%, and levofloxacin 8.3%. Moreover, 64.8% of participants indicated that they bought their antibiotics from pharmacies. Whereas, most of the participants practice antibiotics to save money 19.2% and time 23.1%. Findings from multivariate logistic regressions showed that predictors of SMA were male gender, (95% CI: 0.300-0.877) occupation (95% CI: 0.122-10.797), health insurance (95% CI: 0.025-0.472), and education (95% CI: 0.084-0.800).
Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that SMA persists among the community and education level has a significant impact on this behavior. Thus, concerning health management authorities should step in with developing legislation to stop this practice, and by implementing such interventions and policies to educate and to raise awareness about the risk of SMA for the future.
METHODS: A retrospective review of reports received from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2012 was undertaken. Descriptive statistics method was applied.
RESULTS: A total of 17,357 MEs reported were reviewed. The majority of errors were from public-funded hospitals. Near misses were classified in 86.3 % of the errors. The majority of errors (98.1 %) had no harmful effects on the patients. Prescribing contributed to more than three-quarters of the overall errors (76.1 %). Pharmacists detected and reported the majority of errors (92.1 %). Cases of erroneous dosage or strength of medicine (30.75 %) were the leading type of error, whilst cardiovascular (25.4 %) was the most common category of drug found.
CONCLUSIONS: MERS provides rich information on the characteristics of reported MEs. Low contribution to reporting from healthcare facilities other than government hospitals and non-pharmacists requires further investigation. Thus, a feasible approach to promote MERS among healthcare providers in both public and private sectors needs to be formulated and strengthened. Preventive measures to minimise MEs should be directed to improve prescribing competency among the fallible prescribers identified.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted for three months, in patients with type 2 diabetes who visited three community pharmacies located in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Patients' disease knowledge and their adherence to medications were documented using Arabic versions of the Michigan Diabetes Knowledge Test and the General Medication Adherence Scale respectively. Data were analyzed through SPSS version 23. Chi-square test was used to report association of demographics with adherence. Spearman's rank correlation was employed to report the relationship among HbA1c values, disease knowledge and adherence. Logistic regression model was utilized to report the determinants of medication adherence and their corresponding adjusted odds ratio. Study was approved by concerned ethical committee (IRB-UGS-2019-05-001).
Results: A total of 318 patients consented to participate in the study. Mean HbA1c value was 8.1%. A third of patients (N = 105, 33%) had high adherence and half of patients (N = 162, 50.9%) had disease knowledge between 51% - 75%. A significantly weak-to-moderate and positive correlation (ρ = 0.221, p < 0.01) between medication adherence and disease knowledge was reported. Patients with >50% correct answers in the diabetes knowledge test questionnaire were more likely to be adherent to their medications (AOR 4.46, p < 0.01).
Conclusion: Disease knowledge in most patients was average and half of patients had high-to-good adherence. Patients with better knowledge were 4 to 5 times more likely to have high adherence. This highlights the importance of patient education and awareness regarding medication adherence in managing diabetes.
OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess perceptions of CPs regarding their role, awareness, collaboration, facilitators and barriers towards effective AMS practices in Pakistan.
METHOD: ology: A descriptive, cross-sectional study design was adopted, where convenience and snowball sampling methods were applied to enroll respondents (pharmacists working at these community pharmacies in different cities of Pakistan) of the study. After sample size determination, n = 386 CPs were enrolled. A pre-validated questionnaire was used regarding CPs roles and perceptions in association with AMS. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS v. 21.
RESULTS: The results of the study reported that 57.3% (n = 221) of CPs had strong familiarity with term AMS. 52.1% (n = 201) of CPs agreed that they require adequate training to undertake activities in AMS programmes in their setting. The results of the study showed that 92.7% (n = 358) of the pharmacists thought real time feedback would be helpful. Significant association was observed in AMS awareness, approach, collaboration and barriers with regards to the respondents' gender, age groups and levels of experience in a community pharmacy.
CONCLUSIONS: The study concluded that CPs were aware of AMS programmes, their relevance and necessity of AMS in their everyday practice, but had inadequate training and resources to implement it in Pakistan.
Methods: The study was conducted for the duration of 5 months - November 2018 to March 2019 - in different clinics and tertiary care hospitals of Karachi, Pakistan. Respondents were interviewed by our researchers using 30 items questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to evaluate the answers of respondents to survey items. Pearson correlation and independent sample t-test were employed to recognize the association between the responses of participants and independent variables. P values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.
Results: A total of 421 questionnaires were completed by physicians and clinical pharmacists. The mean age of the study participants was 49.5 years. Around 98% of pharmacists and 93.5% of physicians were well conversant with the definition of unlicensed and off-label drugs. Around 68% of physicians and 77% of pharmacists reported that they were more concerned about the efficacy of such drugs as compared to that of licensed medicines in children. The most frequent off-label categories observed in the study were dose (65.21%) and indication (17.52%). A vast majority (>80%) thought that approving new drugs by regulatory authorities will drop the occurrence of medication errors due to incorrect dosing. The British National Formulary (BNF) for children was used as the best reliable source of information among respondents.
Conclusion: The present study highlighted the common practice of unlicensed and off-label drug prescribing in pediatrics; however, respondents showed their concern towards decreasing such practice and are likely to welcome initiatives intended to assure medication safety in children.