Impact of a continuing education program on pharmacists' knowledge and attitudes toward asthma patient care.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of an asthma continuing education program on pharmacists' knowledge and attitudes related to asthma pharmaceutical care.


METHODS
A 20-hour continuing education program was conducted by the joint efforts of the Taipei City Government, Taiwan Association of Asthma Education and Taipei Medical University Wan Fang Hospital, in a series of 4 days afternoon sessions from June 26 to July 4, 2004. One hundred and twenty-five pharmacists participated. The Asthma Knowledge Test in Mandarin and the Asthma Attitude Scale in Mandarin were developed by adapting the scale used to evaluate the impact of pharmacist continuing education programs on diabetic care. The results before and after the intervention were compared to evaluate the impact of the program.


RESULTS
Of the 125 participants, 105 returned both the pre- and post-intervention questionnaires, for a response rate of 84.0%. The total score of the attitude section increased significantly from 40.04 +/- 3.35 to 42.54 +/- 2.98 (full score = 50, p < 0.001). The total score of the knowledge section also increased significantly from 7.18 +/- 1.31 to 7.56 +/- 1.15 (p = 0.008). Improvement in the attitude score was found in 70 (67.0%) subjects, and in the knowledge score in 45 (43.5%) subjects.


CONCLUSIONS
The study demonstrated that attitude and knowledge toward asthma care improved after the continuing education program. Further study of long-term impact and direct changes in asthma pharmaceutical care practice will be necessary.
Department of Pharmacy, Taipei Medical University Wan Fang Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
Yi-Chun
YC
Chiang
Chun-Nin
CN
Lee
You-Mei
YM
Lin
Yu-Hsuan
YH
Yen
Hsiang-Yin
HY
Chen
D001249:Asthma / Q000188:drug therapy*; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004513:Education, Pharmacy, Continuing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D005791:Patient Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010595:Pharmacists / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011364:Professional Practice; D015397:Program Evaluation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013624:Taiwan