Impact of Educational Intervention to Promote Jordanian Community Pharmacists’ Knowledge and Perception Towards Antimicrobial Stewardship: Pre-Post Interventional Study

• Main Authors: Saleh D, Abu Farha R, Alefishat E
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dove Medical Press 2021-08-01
• Series: Infection and Drug Resistance
• Subjects: stewardship program; antimicrobial resistance; community pharmacist; workshop; knowledge; perception
• Online Access: https://www.dovepress.com/impact-of-educational-intervention-to-promote-jordanian-community-phar-peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-IDR

Doaa Saleh,1 Rana Abu Farha,1 Eman Alefishat2– 4 1Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Applied Science Private University, Amman, Jordan; 2Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine and Health Science, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; 3Center for Biotechnology, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; 4Department Biopharmaceutics and Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, The University of Jordan, Amman, JordanCorrespondence: Eman AlefishatDepartment of Pharmacology, College of Medicine and Health Science, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, P O Box 127788, Abu Dhabi, United Arab EmiratesTel [phone]Email [e-mail]: The aim of this study was to assess the impact of an online educational workshop on improving the knowledge, and perception of community pharmacists in Jordan towards the antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) and enhancing their ability to appropriately select correct antibiotic therapy.Methods: This is a pre-post study that was conducted in Jordan in December 2020. An electronic questionnaire was used to assess the awareness, perception of community pharmacists towards AMS, and their ability to appropriately select correct antibiotic before and after the educational workshop. The two-days’ workshop was conducted on Zoom application. Analysis was conducted using Wilcoxon signed-rank test, McNemar’s test using SPSS version 22.Results: During the study period, 100 community pharmacists attended the educational workshop. Pharmacists’ knowledge was assessed prior to their participation which revealed a relatively good knowledge score with a median score of 6/10 (IQR = 4); their scores have improved significantly following the educational workshop with a median score of 7/10 (IOR = 2), p-value< 0.001. Although one-third of the participants knew the definition of AMS prior to the workshop, almost half of the respondents (n = 56, 56%) knew the definition after the educational workshop. Regarding community pharmacist’s ability to appropriately select correct antibiotic therapy, they showed a significant improvement in selecting the optimal antimicrobial for the virtual cases following the workshop (p-value < 0.05). Perceptions towards AMS were consistently positive before and after the workshop.Conclusion: This study revealed the benefit of AMS-focused workshops for improving community pharmacists’ knowledge and appropriate antibiotic prescribing. Thus, efforts are required to implement more AMS educational workshops for community pharmacists.Keywords: stewardship program, antimicrobial resistance, community pharmacist, workshop, knowledge, perception