| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 臨床藥學研究所 === 92 === Literature has showed that counseling provided by pharmacist can increase patients’ knowledge on medications, improve compliance, and reduce inappropriate medication taking and subsequent drug-related mortality and morbidity. Moreover, it is likely that patients will demand more of these services from pharmacists once their professional role in delivering drug information has been established and acknowledged by patients. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a national health education program, the Community Education Program on Pharmacy and Medications, on participants’ medication behaviors, attitudes, drug information needs and sources, and trust and perceptions toward pharmacists.
This was a single group, pre- and post- comparison study. The subjects were a group of general public who attended the Community Education Program on Pharmacy and Medications delivered by trained pharmacists at 31 community colleges in Taiwan from September 2003 to January 2004. The study collected data through survey questionnaires. The baseline and post-test surveys were carried out in the beginning and at the end of the education program respectively. Data was recoded in Excel and analyzed by SPSS/PC. The statistical method utilized for hypothesis testing was the McNemar’s test with a significant level of p�T0.05.
The study results indicated that after the education program, there was a significant reduction in number of people who kept leftover drugs (p<0.01) or did not notice the expiration of their medications (p<0.05). In addition, the education program also influenced how people handle their leftover and/or expired medications. Instead of “throwing the drugs away with trash” at the baseline, after the program, more people chose “flushing the drugs down the toilet” as the method to handle the extra medications (p<0.001). However, no significant change was observed in patient compliance.
The education program also increased the participants’ attention and demand on medication-related information. A significantly greater number of people relied on pharmacists as their primary source of drug information, and more had obtained their medication information from “hospital pharmacists”, “community pharmacists” and through “the community college programs” as compared to the baseline (p<0.05, p<0.001, p<0.001, respectively). More people also reported that they trusted information obtained from “community pharmacists” and provided by “the community college programs” (p<0.05 respectively). Although number of people who had asked medication-related questions was less (p<0.001) after the education program, those who did ask were significantly more satisfied with the information given (p<0.01). More people also disagreed with the statements “the only role of pharmacists is to dispense drugs according to the prescriptions” and “pharmacists should not second-guessing the prescriptions written by physicians” (p<0.001) in the post-test questionnaire.
Pharmacy and medication education provided by pharmacists at the community can significantly influence the participants on their medication-taking behaviors, attitudes, sources of and trusts in drug information, and perceptions toward pharmacists. As this study is a short-term evaluation, long term follow-up is required in the future to assess whether the education program can improve the general public’s drug compliance and interaction with pharmacists.
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