Community pharmacists' perceptions towards online health information in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Emergency Preparedness for the COVID-19 Pandemic: Social Determinants Predicting the Community Pharmacists’ Preparedness and Perceived Response in Malaysia

Background: Pandemic preparedness of healthcare providers helps to mitigate future threats such as spread and fatality rates, as well as the management of the disease. Pharmacists are key partners with public health agencies, and the role of community pharmacists is becoming increasingly recognised in this COVID-19 pandemic. The study aimed to explore the emergency preparedness of community pharmacists (CPs) for COVID-19. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed among community pharmacists using cluster sampling followed by convenient sampling. A self-administered questionnaire was formulated using references from the previous literature and the WHO preparedness checklist. Descriptive analysis was undertaken for the participants’ socio-demographic characteristics. All the data collected were entered into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 24 (SPSS V.24), (IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 24.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.) for analysis. Results: Most of the CPs had five or fewer years of practice experience, and they had all the mandatory information relating to the needs of their communities regarding the disease. The participants knew where to acquire these resources whenever needed. They were able to recognise the signs and symptoms of the disease. Most participants felt that they were confident to provide patient education and carry out their duties during these challenging times. There was a strong position correlation between preparedness and the perceived response of the participants. Conclusion: The community pharmacists in Malaysia are prepared enough for COVID-19 pandemic management and perceive that they can respond during any unprecedented situations, such as COVID-19. Community pharmacists were aware of the challenges that they need to face in their community regarding COVID-19.

Improving Emergency Department Patient-Physician Conversation Through an Artificial Intelligence Symptom-Taking Tool: Mixed Methods Pilot Observational Study

BACKGROUND

Establishing rapport and empathy between patients and their health care provider is important but challenging in the context of a busy and crowded emergency department (ED).

OBJECTIVE

We explore the hypotheses that rapport building, documentation, and time efficiency might be improved in the ED by providing patients a digital tool that uses Bayesian reasoning-based techniques to gather relevant symptoms and history for handover to clinicians.

METHODS

A 2-phase pilot evaluation was carried out in the ED of a German tertiary referral and major trauma hospital that treats an average of 120 patients daily. Phase 1 observations guided iterative improvement of the digital tool, which was then further evaluated in phase 2. All patients who were willing and able to provide consent were invited to participate, excluding those with severe injury or illness requiring immediate treatment, with traumatic injury, incapable of completing a health assessment, and aged <18 years. Over an 18-day period with 1699 patients presenting to the ED, 815 (47.96%) were eligible based on triage level. With available recruitment staff, 135 were approached, of whom 81 (60%) were included in the study. In a mixed methods evaluation, patients entered information into the tool, accessed by clinicians through a dashboard. All users completed evaluation Likert-scale questionnaires rating the tool's performance. The feasibility of a larger trial was evaluated through rates of recruitment and questionnaire completion.

RESULTS

Respondents strongly endorsed the tool for facilitating conversation (61/81, 75% of patients, 57/78, 73% of physician ratings, and 10/10, 100% of nurse ratings). Most nurses judged the tool as potentially time saving, whereas most physicians only agreed for a subset of medical specialties (eg, surgery). Patients reported high usability and understood the tool's questions. The tool was recommended by most patients (63/81, 78%), in 53% (41/77) of physician ratings, and in 76% (61/80) of nurse ratings. Questionnaire completion rates were 100% (81/81) by patients and 96% (78/81 enrolled patients) by physicians.

CONCLUSIONS

This pilot confirmed that a larger study in the setting would be feasible. The tool has clear potential to improve patient-health care provider interaction and could also contribute to ED efficiency savings. Future research and development will extend the range of patients for whom the history-taking tool has clinical utility.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

German Clinical Trials Register DRKS00024115; https://drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00024115.

Pharmacists' perceptions of the use of internet-based medication information by patients: A cross-sectional survey

PURPOSE

The credibility and the reliability of Internet webpages to seek medication-related information is questionable. The main objective of the current study was to evaluate perception and experience of pharmacists with the use of Internet-based medication information by their patients.

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).

CONCLUSION

Although pharmacists felt that usage of Internet-based data by patients is beneficial, they also have believed that it has a negative impact in terms of rising the healthcare cost, and it promotes unnecessary fear or concern about medications. We suggest that pharmacists be trained on principles of critical appraisal to become professional in retrieval information on the Internet that might improve their delivery of healthcare information and their recommendations to patients.

Self-reported use of and access to personal protective equipment among healthcare workers during the COVID-19 outbreak in Nigeria

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is highly infectious resulting in increased infection and death among the front-line Healthcare Workers (HCW) because of limited access to personal protective equipment (PPE). This study assesses the availability and self-reported use of PPE amongst HCW during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. A mixed-method study was conducted through a cross-sectional survey and in-depth interviews amongst HCW. Quantitative data analysis was done using SPSS version 26 and thematic analysis was done for the in-depth interview. A total of 258 HCW completed the survey while 15 HCW took part in the in-depth interview. The mean age was 40 (±8.6) years, 67.4% were female and 83.3% were married. 49% were Doctors, 21.1% were Nurses, 28.7% were other allied HCW and 62.2% had at least 10 years of practice experience. Only 22.1% of HCWs had regular access to PPE and only 20.6% had access to N-95 facemask compare to other PPEs. Male HCWs and those working at secondary or tertiary facilities had access to N-95 facemask (p-value 0.025 and 0.010 respectively). The facilitator of PPE use is leadership quality of hospital head and donation of PPE to the facilities while the barriers to PPE use include a limited supply of PPE, as well as facility's infrastructural and operational challenges. The study reported limited access to essential PPE with varying perspectives on its use. Therefore, access, knowledge, and appropriate use of PPE need urgent attention with improved implementation of infection control policy at the facility level.

The magnitude of prescribing medicines by brand names at Muhimbili National Hospital, Tanzania

Background:

Tanzania National Treatment Guidelines and National Therapeutic Committee circular of 2012 requires prescribers to prescribe medicines using their generic names as recommended by the World Health Organization. The implementation of the aforementioned recommendations by prescribers is not well documented in our settings. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the compliance on the use of generic names by prescribers at Muhimbili National Hospital.

Methods:

A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Muhimbili National Hospital from January to May 2019 in both inpatient and outpatient pharmacy units. Data were analyzed using SPSS, version 23. Chi-square test was used to analyze proportions between the different variables of the study. A p-value for significance was <0.05.

Results:

Of 1001 prescriptions analyzed, 71.6% contained medicines prescribed using brand names. The mean (±standard deviation (SD)) number of medicines per prescription was 2.98 (±1.5). The most frequently prescribed medicines by brand names were a combination of vitamin and mineral supplements (34.4%) followed by antibiotics (26.7%). Medical doctors (25.6%) and medical specialists (21.6%) prescribed ⩾2 medicines using brand names per prescription compared to interns (15.0%) and residents (6.9%) ( p < 0.001).

Conclusion:

Prescribing medicines using brand names was highly observed in this study. Supplements and antibiotics were among the products that were highly prescribed using their brand names. Qualitative studies to explore reasons for brand name prescribing practices are recommended.

Internet use and eHealth literacy among health-care professionals in a resource limited setting: a cross-sectional survey

BACKGROUND

Health-care professionals should be able to identify and use reputable health care-information sources from the Internet and other relevant sources of information, in order to make good medical decisions. The level in health professional eHealth literacy and the extent of Internet use in a resource-constrained setting is not well documented. The aim of this study was to assess the extent of Internet use and eHealth literacy among a cross section of health-care professionals at the University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, northwest Ethiopia.

METHODS

An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted to assess Internet use and eHealth literacy among health professionals working at the hospital from November 20 to January 17, 2018. Descriptive analysis was used to describe Internet use and eHealth literacy. Multivariable logistic regression was done to identify which factors were associated with the eHealth literacy of participants.

RESULTS

In total, 291 study subjects were approached and included in the study, with a response rate of 98.6%. The majority of respondents were female (53.7%) and the mean age was 30.09±5.025 years. Only 47.4% of survey respondents said that they used the Internet regularly for professional/medical updates. The mean eHealth literacy was 27.840±5.691. The majority of participants with high eHealth literacy were aged 21-29 years. and females were slightly more literate regarding eHealth than males (33.1%). Age, type of profession, salary, and years of experience were significantly associated with eHealth literacy.

CONCLUSION

The present data confirm that Internet use and eHealth literacy of health professionals is noticeably good, which clearly suggests that there is an opportunity for eHealth to be integrated in the health-care system in tertiary-health facilities in northern Ethiopia if appropriate training and education is provided.