METHODS: This is a cross-sectional descriptive study that was conducted to evaluate perception and experience of pharmacists with the use of Internet-based medication information by their patients. During the study period, 200 pharmacists were approached to participate in the study using a paper-based survey to assess their perceptions and current experience with the use of Internet-based medication information by their patients. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean/standard deviation for continuous variables, and frequency/percentages for qualitative variables). Also, simple linear regression was utilized to screen factors affecting pharmacists' perception scores of the use of Internet-based medication information.

RESULTS: Among 161 recruited pharmacists, the majority (n = 129, 80.1%) reported receiving inquiries from patients about Internet-based medication information within the last year. Among them, only 22.6% (n = 29) of pharmacists believed that Internet-based medication information is somewhat or very accurate. Unfortunately, only 24.2% (n = 31) of them stated that they always had enough time for their patient to discuss their Internet-based medication information. Regarding pharmacists' perception of the use of Internet-based medication information by their patients, more than half of the pharmacists (>50%) believe that Internet-based medication information could increase the patient's role in taking responsibility. On the other hand, 54.7% (n = 88) of the pharmacists believed that Internet-based medication information would contribute to rising the healthcare cost by obtaining unnecessary medications by patients. Finally, pharmacists' educational level was found to significantly affect their perception scores toward patient use of Internet-based medication information where those with higher educational level showed lower perception score (r = -0.200, P-value = 0.011).

OBJECTIVE: To explore the perceptions of Malaysian hospital pharmacists and patients on the barriers and facilitators of a PCC approach in pharmacist consultations.

DESIGN: This study employed a qualitative, explorative semi-structured interview design.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Interviews were conducted with 17 patients and 18 pharmacists from three tertiary hospitals in Malaysia. The interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Emerging themes were developed through a constant comparative approach and thematic analysis.

RESULTS: Three themes were identified in this study: (i) patient-related factors (knowledge, role expectations, and sociocultural characteristics), (ii) pharmacist-related factors (personalities and communication), and (iii) healthcare institutional and system-related factors (resources, continuity of care, and interprofessional collaboration). Pharmacists and patients mentioned that factors such as patients' knowledge and attitudes and pharmacists' personality traits and communication styles can affect patients' engagement in the consultation. Long waiting time and insufficient manpower were perceived as barriers to the practice of PCC. Continuity of care and interprofessional collaboration were viewed as crucial in providing supportive and tailored care to patients.

METHODS: This cross-sectional study involved third- and fourth-year pharmacy students at the International Islamic University Malaysia. A validated self-administered questionnaire was distributed to students who had taken a vOSCE a week before.

RESULTS: Out of the 253 students who were approached, 231 (91.3%) completed the questionnaire. More than 75% of the participants agreed that the instructions and preparations were clear and helpful in familiarizing them with the vOSCE flow. It was found that 53.2% of the respondents were satisfied with the flow and conduct of the vOSCE. However, only approximately one-third of the respondents believed that the tasks provided in the vOSCE were more convenient, less stressful, and easier to perform than those in the conventional OSCE. Furthermore, 49.7% of the students favored not having a vOSCE in the future when conducting a conventional OSCE becomes feasible again. Internet connection was reported as a problem hindering the performance of the vOSCE by 51.9% of the participants. Students who were interested in clinical pharmacy courses were more satisfied than other students with the preparation and operation of the vOSCE, the faculty support, and the allocated time.

Methods: A qualitative design was conducted on community pharmacists in Baghdad, Iraq. Pharmacists were selected conveniently from different gender, age group, pharmacy type and years of experience. Face-to-face semi-structure interview was used with all the pharmacists to get in-depth understanding about their dispensing practice of antibiotics without prescription in community pharmacy. The data was coded and classified for thematic analysis.

Results: This study found that dispensing of antibiotics without prescription was a common practice in community pharmacy. Pharmacists' perception towards dispensing antibiotics without prescription was associated with the medical condition, safety and efficacy of antibiotics, patients request antibiotics by name, emergency cases, regular customer, promotions from pharmaceutical companies, saving time and cost, brand medications, and poor healthcare services. In addition, there were inadequate knowledge about antibiotic resistance and lack of awareness about antibiotic stewardship leading to inappropriate dispensing practice.

METHODS: A semistructured interview study was conducted among 17 patients and 18 pharmacists in three tertiary hospitals in Malaysia. All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Themes were developed using a constant comparison approach and thematic analysis.

RESULTS: Five main themes emerged from the data, namely, achieving mutual understanding, recognizing individuality, communication style, information giving, and medication decision making. For both pharmacists and patients, a PCC consultation should promote mutual understanding and non-judgmental discussions. Communication was an important element to bridge the gap between patients' and pharmacists' expectations. Patients emphasized the importance of emotional aspects of the consultation, while pharmacists emphasized the importance of evidence-based information to support patient engagement and information needs.

OBJECTIVE: This paper describes the implementation of a full cohort IPE activity for medical and pharmacy students delivered at both the Australian and Malaysian campuses of Monash University.

DESIGN: We designed a 150-minute, blended learning activity centred around asthma care for second-year medical and pharmacy students. Student perceptions were measured with a pre- and post-activity survey using the validated ten-item, three-factor, SPICE-R2 instrument. Analysis focused on differences between professions and countries.

RESULTS: All second-year medicine (N = 301 in Australia and N = 107 in Malaysia) and pharmacy students (N = 168 in Australia and N = 117 in Malaysia) participated in the learning activity. A total of 326/693 (47%) students participated in the associated research by completing both the pre- and post-activity surveys. The pre-activity survey showed significant differences in four items between medicine and pharmacy students in Australia and two items in Malaysia. Post-activity, we observed significant changes in 8/10 items when the two professions were combined. Specifically, we noted changes across the countries in perceptions of roles and responsibilities for collaborative practice and patient outcomes from collaborative practice.

Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study that included all patients with AF who were treated with NOACs (dabigatran or rivaroxaban) in HKL and HSDG. Data were obtained from medical records and pharmacy databases. Adherence was assessed using proportion of days covered (PDC) over a 1-year duration. High adherence was defined as PDC ≥80%. A gap of >60 days between two consecutive refills was used to define non-persistence.

Result: There were 281 patients who met the inclusion criteria, with 54.1% (n = 152) male. There were 75.1% (n = 211) patients on dabigatran and others on rivaroxaban. Only 66.9% (n = 188) of patients achieved high adherence with PDC ≥80% and 69.8% (n = 196) were persistence with >60-day gap over 12 months. Adherence and persistence were both influenced by treatment center, whereas polypharmacy only influenced adherence.

Objective: This work aimed to explore the possibility of using Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and chemometrics to develop multivariate models to authenticate the "halal-ity" of pharmaceutical excipients with controversial halal status (e.g., magnesium stearate).

Materials and Methods: The FTIR spectral fingerprints of the substance were used to build principal component analysis (PCA) models. The effects of different spectral pretreatment processes such as auto-scaling, baseline correction, standard normal variate (SNV), first, and second derivatives were evaluated. The optimization of the model performance was established to ensure the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the predicted models.

Results: Significant peaks corresponding to the properties of the compound were identified. For both bovine and plant-derived magnesium stearate, the peaks associated can be seen within the regions 2900cm-1 (C-H), 2800cm-1 (CH3), 1700cm-1 (C=O), and 1000-1300cm-1 (C-O). There was not much difference observed in the FTIR raw spectra of the samples from both sources. The quality and accuracy of the classification models by PCA and soft independent modeling classification analogy (SIMCA) have shown to improve using spectra optimized by first derivative followed by SNV smoothing.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A prospective online questionnaire based survey was carried out among the pharmacy students about knowledge, attitude perception and practice of antibiotics using 5-point "Likert scale" and true/false responses. The responses range from strongly agree to strongly disagree, and always to never were recorded. The data were analysed by using simple descriptive statistics.

RESULTS: Out of 300 students approached 212 responded and the response rate was found to be 71%. In this study, most (95%) of the students were aware of the emerging problem of antibiotic resistance due to inappropriate use of antibiotics. Majority (89%) of the students agreed the inappropriate use of antibiotics can increase the overall cost of treatment. However, over half of the (54%) students were not aware of the antibiotic resistance that may be a nation-wide problem of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The net positive response (NPR) and net other response (NOR) of all items in perception on antibiotics received more or less equal responses.

Methods: A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was conducted among 103 pharmacists from 74 different community pharmacies to assess their knowledge about the use of herbal medicines and its adverse drug reaction reporting by using a pre-validate knowledge questionnaire consisting of 12 questions related to it. The pharmacists' responses were measured at a 3-point Likert scale (Poor=1, Moderate=2, and Good=3) and data was entered in SPSS version 22. The minimum and maximum possible scores for knowledge questionnaires were 12 and 36 respectively. Quantitative data was analyzed by using One Way ANOVA and Paired t-test whereas Chi-square and Fisher exact test were used for qualitative data analysis. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant for all the analyses.

Results: About 92% of the pharmacist had good knowledge regarding the use of herbal medicines and its adverse drug reaction reporting with a mean knowledge score of 32.88±3.16. One-way ANOVA determined a significant difference of employment setting (p<0.043) and years of experience (<0.008) with mean knowledge scores of Pharmacists. Pharmacists' knowledge was significantly associated with their years of experience with the Chi-square test.

Methods: A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was conducted among 482 medical, dental, and pharmacy students of 3rd- and 4th-year degree program of Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology University to assess their KAP about HB infection using 34 prevalidated questions by convenient sampling method. A questionnaire was administered to the students, and their responses were measured at "yes" and "no" scale. Students' responses were entered in SPSS version 22, and quantitative analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and nonparametric tests at P < 0.05.

Findings: The medical, dental, and pharmacy students had good knowledge and practice with positive attitude about HB infection. Mann-Whitney U-test determined a significant difference in knowledge (P < 0.001) and practice (P < 0.001) scores between medical and pharmacy, attitude (P < 0.001) scores between medical and dental, and attitude (P < 0.001) and practice (P < 0.001) scores between pharmacy and dental students. Students' age was correlated with their attitude, practice, and KAP scores and family income with their knowledge, attitude, practice, and KAP scores.

METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among undergraduate pharmacy students in a public university in Malaysia using a validated and pre-tested self-administered questionnaire. The study was conducted in November and December 2019. The data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistical tests.

RESULTS: Of the 318 female undergraduate students invited, 219 completed the questionnaire (response rate: 68.9%) with 52% aged between 21 and 23 years. The prevalence of dysmenorrhea was 72.1%, and the prevalence of ever-use and current use of CATs was 70.3 and 54.4%, respectively. Bed rest (71.5%), hot compress/heating pad (47.5%) and massage (43.0%) were the most common CATs used by the respondents. The most common reasons for using CAT were to reduce the need for analgesics (61.4%), efficacy (37.3%) and recommendation by others (32.9%). About 23 and 9% of the respondents believed that CATs were equally "effective" and "more effective" than analgesics, respectively. Reducing the need for analgesics (AOR: 4.066, 95% CI: 2.136-7.739) and those who agreed that CATs are effective (AOR: 2.701, 95% CI: 1.337-5.457) were independently associated with the current use CATs for the treatment of menstrual pain.

METHODS: Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted among medical, dentistry, and pharmacy students in a Malaysian University. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and thematically analyzed to understand the students' perspectives of QA in education.

RESULTS: The participants recognized the importance of QA towards ensuring the quality of their training, which will consequently impact their work readiness, employability, and quality of healthcare services. Academic governance, curriculum structure, content and delivery, faculty and student quality, teaching facilities, and learning resources were indicated as the QA areas. The challenges for students' involvement included students' attitude, maturity, and cultural barrier. To enhance their buy-in, clear objectives and impact, efficient QA mechanism, and recognition of students' contribution had been suggested.

Objective: This study aimed to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hospital-based clinical pharmacists working in Malaysia and the implications on how clinical pharmacy is perceived as a health care service.

Methods: A qualitative study was designed to meet the research objectives. Nineteen hospital-based clinical pharmacists consented and participated in one-on-one, semi-structured interviews. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using an iterative thematic analysis approach.

Results: The experiences and views of the participants were reported. Three main themes were developed: 'Reassignment and other changes in clinical pharmacist roles', 'Adapting clinical pharmacy services to COVID-19', and 'The need for clinical pharmacists in the ward'. The findings indicate that in many cases, clinical pharmacy services were fully or partially withdrawn from the ward to reduce the risk of infection and to conserve the usage of personal protective equipment. Despite this, clinical pharmacists continued to support patient care in hospitals through the use of technology. The withdrawal of clinical pharmacy services, however, raises concern that the role of clinical pharmacists is still poorly recognized.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: This study aimed to determine the most efficient and effective management of stagnant and shortage drugs by comparing three pharmacy logistic methods; the economic order quantity (EOQ), minimum-maximum stock level (MMSL), and the traditional consumption of drug inventory, at RA Basoeni Hospital, Mojokerto. Drug inventory was analyzed to calculate the opportunity loss, opportunity cost, and proportions of both stagnant and shortage drugs.

RESULTS: We found that EOQ and MMSL performed best for control of stagnant drugs and shortage drugs, respectively. Both methods had proved as effective pharmacy logistic planning. In addition, EOQ produced the lowest opportunity cost for stagnant drugs besides the lowest opportunity loss for shortage drugs.