https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0332-9517
Abstract
Background
Optimizing exit-knowledge of ambulatory patients is a major professional responsibility of pharmacists to reassure safe and cost-effective medicines use. The study assessed the exit-knowledge of ambulatory patients on their dispensed medications and associated factors.
Patients and Methods
Institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted among ambulatory patients who visited the outpatient pharmacy of Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital (ACSH) from December 2019 to February 2020. Data were entered, cleaned, and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Binary logistic regression was employed to determine factors associated with exit-knowledge on their dispensed medications. At a 95% confidence interval (CI), p≤0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results
The study analyzed 400 patients; more than half of the participants were males (55.5%). The mean age of the participants was 41.3 years (mean ± standard deviation (SD), ±13). Less than half of the patients did not recall the name (44.5%) and major side effects (31.2%) of each medication. Furthermore, the overall sufficient knowledge was found to be 81%. Patients with single marital status were 4.454 times to have sufficient exit-knowledge of their dispensed medications than widowed (p=0.050) participants. Besides, patients who responded neutral clarity of pharmacist instruction had 4.745 times sufficient exit-knowledge than those who responded not clear (p=0.049). On the other hand, participants who got “enough” (p<0.0001) and “not enough” (p=0.006) information from the pharmacist were found to have a positive association with sufficient exit-knowledge than those who responded “I do not know”.
Conclusion
The majority of patients had sufficient exit-knowledge of their dispensed medications. Martially single, neutral clarity of pharmacist’s instructions and adequacy of the information delivered by the pharmacist were positively associated with participants’ exit-knowledge of their dispensed medications. Hence, conducting a multicenter study, we recommend pharmacists to counsel their patients to underpin patients’ knowledge of their dispensed medications.
Abbreviations
ACSH, Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital; AOR, adjusted odds ratio; CI, confidence interval; SD, standard deviation.
Ethical Standards
The study was approved by the Ethical Review Board (ERB) of the College of Health Sciences, Mekelle University. A letter of support was obtained from the medical director’s office of the hospital. Oral informed consent was obtained from adult patients and legal guardian informed oral consent was obtained for patients under the age of 18 years and approved by the Ethical Review Board committee. The study was conducted following the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committees. The study also adhered to the declarations of Helsinki.
Author Contributions
All authors made substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; took part in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; agreed on the journal to which the article will be submitted; gave final approval of the version to be published; and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.
Disclosure
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.