scholarly journals Assessment of the Use and Status of New Drug Information Centers in a Developing Country, Ethiopia: The Case of Public University Hospital Drug Information Centers

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayenew Ashenef ◽  
Elham Reshid ◽  
Zewdu Yilma ◽  
Tadesse Melaku ◽  
Tesfahun Chane

Introduction. Drug information center (DIC), in most cases, is part and parcel of pharmacy service established as a unit that deals with offering recent, balanced, truthful facts about drugs to the public, patients, and health care professionals. Objective. To assess the query receiving and response trends by the drug information centers (DICs) found in main university affiliated teaching health care institutes in Ethiopia. Settings. The drug information centers located in Mekelle, Gondar, Jimma, Tikur Anbessa Specialized University Hospitals, and St. Peter Public Hospital, Ethiopia. Methods. It employed analytical, descriptive (cross-sectional), and retrospective methods. The study was performed from June to August, 2015. All the available documented data were gathered with the help of checklist and questionnaire (self-administered). Results. A total of 439 queries submitted to the DICs during their active service period were included in this study of which 407 were found to be suitable for this assessment. The highest inquiries had come from public hospitals (60 %) from health care workers (95.1 %), out of which pharmacists were the highest (63.57 %) submitters, followed by health care students (12.7 %). The major purposes of query submission were to improve treatment outcome of patients (33.9 %) and then to update the knowledge (25.1 %) although 39.3 % of the queries did not document it. The most common requests concern drug interaction (19.7 %) followed by therapeutic use (17.8 %) and the major pharmacological group is about antimicrobials (23.3 %) followed by antihypertensives (11.4 %). Web sites (31.4 %) were the most highly used references followed by Micromedex (19.0 %). Conclusion. The assessment of the DICs had shown that it is feasible to establish and develop DIC services in a developing country setting, Ethiopia. The study found that most of the common queries deal with drug interaction, therapeutic use, and general product information (most commonly about antimicrobials).

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Belete Kassa Alemu ◽  
Tessema Tsehay Biru

Background. The role of health care professionals among other stakeholders in early detection, assessment, documentation, and reporting as well as preventing suspected adverse reactions is very crucial to mitigate drug-related problems in health facilities. Previous reports from literatures have indicated that adverse drug reaction reporting is highly linked to the knowledge and attitude of the health care professionals. Objective. To assess knowledge, attitude, and practice of health care professionals about adverse drug reactions and the associated factors at selected public hospitals in Northeast Ethiopia. Methods. A hospital-based quantitative cross-sectional study design was employed. A structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data on KAP of selected health care providers by the convenience sampling method. Data were entered into Epi info version 3.5.3 and analyzed using SPSS Version 20. Association between dependent and independent variables was found by using bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis where p<0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results. Out of 120 questionnaires distributed, 114 respondents filled and returned, giving a 95% response rate. From total, 49 (43%) were nurses, 26 (22.8%) physicians, 17 (14.9%) pharmacy professionals, 12 (10.5%) health officers, and 10 (8.8%) midwives. About 86 (75.44%) study participants had an inadequate knowledge towards ADR reporting, and half of participants failed to report the adverse drug reactions they encountered. But the majority of participants (84, 73.68%) had a favorable attitude towards ADR reporting. Nurses [AOR = 0.069, 95% CI (0.018–0.275)], health officers [AOR = 0.10, 95% CI (0.015–0.647)], and physicians [AOR = 0.14, 95% CI (0.03–0.64)] were found to be less likely to have adequate knowledge on ADR reporting compared to pharmacy professionals. Conclusion. Even though the majority of health care professionals had a positive attitude, they had inadequate knowledge and poor practice towards ADR reporting.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 539-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Gregory ◽  
Mohamed A. Jalloh ◽  
Andrew M. Abe ◽  
James Hu ◽  
Darren J. Hein

Purpose: To characterize requests received through an academic drug information consultation service related to complementary and alternative medicines. Methods: A retrospective review and descriptive analysis of drug information consultations was conducted. Results: A total of 195 consultations related to complementary and alternative medicine were evaluated. All consultation requests involved questions about dietary supplements. The most common request types were related to safety and tolerability (39%), effectiveness (38%), and therapeutic use (34%). Sixty-eight percent of the requests were from pharmacists. The most frequent consultation requests from pharmacists were questions related to drug interactions (37%), therapeutic use (37%), or stability/compatibility/storage (34%). Nearly 60% of complementary and alternative medicine-related consultation requests were able to be completely addressed using available resources. Among review sources, Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database, Clinical Pharmacology, Micromedex, and Pharmacist’s Letter were the most common resources used to address consultations. Conclusion: Utilization of a drug information service may be a viable option for health care professionals to help answer a complementary and alternative medicine-related question. Additionally, pharmacists and other health care professionals may consider acquiring resources identified to consistently answering these questions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Demamu Haligamo ◽  
Tanimo Haligamo

Abstract Background: Job-related stress is harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job don’t match the capabilities and needs of the worker. Therefore, if work isn’t properly managed, job stress can happen that leads to illness, absenteeism, high turnover, and decreased productivity that compromise provision of quality service to clients. Workers are backbones of countries development that are at risk of different occupational stresses. And, there’s no information about job-related stress among healthcare professionals and predicting factors around the study area. So, this study is aimed to assess occupational related stress and predicting factors among health care professional working in Gurage Zone public hospitals, Southern Ethiopia by August 2021. Method: Institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted to assess occupational related stress and predicting factors among health care professionals. A structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from 345 study participants. The data was collected and analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version.23. The association between dependent and independent variables were checked by using bivariate and multivariable logistic regression. Finally, descriptive writings, tables and graphs were used to describe study variables. Result: The result showed that the prevalence of occupation (work-related) stress among healthcare professionals was 78.3%. Wards in which healthcare professionals are working, position of healthcare professionals, working hour and work shift have significant association with stress status of respondents. When compared to Medical ward, professionals working in other wards were 1.62 times more likely to have stress [AOR 1.62 (1.23, 2.13)]. Also, when compared to respondents who are working for 8 hour per day, those working more than 8 hour per day were 70 times more likely to have stress [AOR 70 (85, 582)]. Discussion and Conclusion: According to this study three out of four respondents were found to have stress among healthcare professionals. Regular trainings for healthcare professional should be needed in public hospitals to reduce stresses.


Author(s):  
Rabia Hussain ◽  
Mohamed Azmi Hassali ◽  
Furqan Hashmi ◽  
Tayyaba Akram

Abstract Background Spontaneous reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) is a method of monitoring the safety of drugs and is the basic strategy for the post-marketing surveillance of the suspected drugs. Despite its importance, there is very little reporting of ADRs by healthcare professionals. The present study has evaluated the knowledge, attitude and practices of health care professionals (HCPs) regarding pharmacovigilance activities in Lahore, Pakistan. Methods A cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey was employed, and a convenience sampling was opted to collect the data among physicians, pharmacists and nurses working in tertiary care public hospitals of Lahore, Pakistan from September 2018 to January 2019. Results Of the 384 questionnaires distributed, 346 health care professionals responded to the questionnaire (90.10% response rate). Most participants had good knowledge about ADR reporting, but pharmacist had comparatively better knowledge than other HCPs regarding ADR (89.18%) pharmacovigilance system (81.08%), its centres (72.97%) and function (91.89%). Most of the participants exhibited positive attitude regarding ADR reporting, such as 49.1% of physicians (P < 0.05), 70.2% pharmacists and 76.1% nurses showed a positive attitude that they are the most important HCPs to report an ADR. About 64.3% of physicians (P < 0.05) emphasized that consulting other colleagues is important before reporting an ADR. Of all, 77.7% physicians, 75.7% pharmacists and 68% of nurses had positive attitude that ADR reporting is a professional obligation and 67.6% of the pharmacists stated that they have reported ADRs in their workplace and 77.2% nurses have verbally reported ADRs to the concerned personnel or department. Conclusion Among all HCPs, pharmacists had better knowledge about ADR reporting and pharmacovigilance. All HCPs had positive attitude and inclination towards ADR reporting. The discrepancies were observed in the practices related to ADR reporting, whereas most of the participants including physicians and nurses did not report any ADR. Based on the above, strategies are needed to educate, train, and empower the HCPs in the domain of pharmacovigilance.


2020 ◽  
Vol V (I) ◽  
pp. 9-16
Author(s):  
Anam Arshad ◽  
Malik Irfan Zulfiqar ◽  
Zahra Hassan Kiani ◽  
Maria Hassan Kiani ◽  
Muhammad Rauf ul Hassan

A cross sectional study was performed among 250 health care professionals from Children Hospital, Jinnah hospital and Services Institute of Medical science Lahore, through a self-designed questionnaire to assess the knowledge of therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM). A total 300 questionnaires were distributed and 250 were returned, giving a response 83%. Out of 300 health care professionals 50 participants do not even know the term TDM. Only 40% participants strongly agreed that TDM is done for all patients. Only 26.8% participants agreed that TDM is carried out for all drugs. Only 63.2% participants agreed that the TDM is very costly process. Only 38.4% strongly agreed that TDM requires extra time of health care professionals and only 36% participants remain neutral to the perception that TDM is requested by patient rather than health care professionals. Limited resources and lack of technical skills are barriers in performing TDM in under-developed country like Pakistan.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (B) ◽  
pp. 779-783
Author(s):  
Olivera Kalajdžić ◽  
Jelena Pavlović

BACKGROUND: Psychological support for patients and their families is of great importance at times when they go through shock, stress, and fear at moments when confronted with diagnosis and treatment. AIM: Aim to this study was to examine the influence of family attitudes on psychosocial adaptation and the effect of treatment of patients with malignancies to preserve the integrity of the diseased person in Bosnia and Herzegovina. METHODS: The cross-sectional study included 100 patients who were hospitalized at Foca University Hospital, Department of Oncology between September 2019 and December 2019. The survey used a sociodemographic questionnaire as well as a standardized questionnaire to evaluate communication with patients with malignant diseases for the patient and family (CCAT-PF). RESULTS: More than half of the respondents (69%) accepted the malignancy. When it comes to communication between health-care professionals and patients, 51% are satisfied with the communication and 49% are not satisfied. Most respondents (62%) hesitate to talk about side effects during treatment with health-care professionals, with a statistically significant difference observed between male and female respondents (χ2 = 6,014; p = 0.014). CONCLUSION: The time devoted to the subjects by the physicians as well as the willingness to listen to the patient is important aspects that influence the adaptation of the disease as well as the treatment.


Author(s):  
Aspasia Goula ◽  
Maria-Aggeliki Stamouli ◽  
Dimitra Latsou ◽  
Vasiliki Gkioka ◽  
Niki Kyriakidou

(1) Background: A learning organizational culture is crucial to the safety of patients and the quality of public health care. The aim of this study was to assess the learning organizational culture and capacity of Greek public hospitals. (2) Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional analysis was carried out in six public general hospitals and stratified sampling was used as the sampling technique. A total of 480 questionnaires were distributed to health care professionals and 380 valid questionnaires were returned (78% response rate). The comprehensive form of the Dimensions of Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ), which was adapted and translated into Greek, was used for data collection in this survey. (3) Results: The level of learning organizational culture and capacity in the health units are very low. All seven dimensions of the learning organizational instrument are lower than the theoretically neutral median (3.0). Health care employees believe that the hospital’s existing culture and management practices do not foster and contribute to continuing learning, which is the fundamental aspect of self-development, department development and performance improvement. (4) Conclusions: Greek public hospitals need to adopt different types of leadership practices and culture in order to be able to facilitate organizational learning. Organizational learning (OL) is based on collaborative working, a culture that encompasses learning as participation in the organizational work practice. This transformation of culture should take place at all levels of learning to enhance results.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-63
Author(s):  
Silke Heuse ◽  
Cathrin Dietze ◽  
Daniel Fodor ◽  
Edgar Voltmer

Background: Future health-care professionals face stress both during education and in later professional life. Next to educational trainings, many students are forced to assume part-time employment. Objective: Applying the Job Demands-Resources Model to the educational context, we investigate which role part-time employment plays next to health-care professional students’ education-specific demands and resources in the prediction of perceived stress. Method: In this cross-sectional study, data from N = 161 health-care students were analysed, testing moderation models. Results: Education-specific demands were associated with higher and education-specific resources with lower amounts of perceived stress. Part-time employment functioned as moderator, i.e. demands were less associated with stress experiences in students who were employed part-time. Conclusion: Identifying part-time employment as a resource rather than a demand illustrates the need to understand students’ individual influences on stress. Both educators and students will benefit from reflecting these resources to support students’ stress management.


Author(s):  
Ola Albaghdadi ◽  
Salam , Mohammad Hassan Morteza, Firas A Ahjel ◽  
Mohammad Hassan Morteza ◽  
Firas Aziz Rahi

Aims: Elderly in Iraq kept suffering multiple burdens, as they are a truly fragile and vulnerable segment. A major public health issue among elderly is adverse drug reactions. This study is aimed at contributing in overcoming this treatment gap by determining the prevalence of inappropriate medications used by a group of Iraqi elderly outpatients. Methods: A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was conducted in a sample of 85 Iraqi elderly aged ≥65 years of either gender. Participants had face-to-face interviews to answer a comprehensive questionnaire. Each drug taken by the patient was evaluated according to Beers criteria. Results: Females constituted 45.9% of the total. The average age was 69.9 years (± 4.6). Nearly 30% of the patients had 3 different diseases, and 17.8% had ≥4 different ones, with cardiovascular diseases were the most prevalent. Polypharmacy was notably identified in 47.1% of the total studied population. Twenty-eight out of 85 patients did not know the actual reason of taking at least one of their medications, and 42% were not taking their drugs as directed. Remarkably, 43.5% of patients were recognized as taking at least one medication to be avoided in elderly people according to the Beers criteria. The most common inappropriate drugs were glyburide, and proton-pump inhibitors. Conclusion: There was an obvious absence of any role of pharmacists in the health care system for our studied population. Health care professionals are encouraged to review the medications prescribed for geriatric patients using updated safety guidelines to prevent the risks associated with potentially inappropriate medications.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document