IMPROVEMENT
IN PHARMACISTS’ KNOWLEDGE THROUGH PROFESSIONAL INSERVICE
EDUCATION PROGRAMS
Kutay DEMİRKAN*o, Ayçe
ÇELİKER**, Deniz YILMAZ*, Mesut SANCAR***, Şule APİKOĞLU RABUŞ***, Fikret Vehbi İZZETTİN***, Fethi ŞAHİN****
* Hacettepe University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Department
of Pharmaceutical Technology, 06100 Sıhhiye, Ankara
- TURKEY.
** Hacettepe University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Hacettepe
Drug and Poison Information Center (HIZBIM), 06100 Sıhhiye,
Ankara - TURKEY. *** Marmara University, Faculty of Pharmacy,
Department of Pharmacology. 81010 Haydarpaşa, Istanbul
- TURKEY. **** Gazi University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Dean,
06330 Etiler, Ankara - TURKEY
oCorresponding Author
Summary
Continuing Education programs are not mandatory for pharmacists
in Turkey. As a model, we conducted a program, “Good
Pharmacy Practice”, to evaluate the benefit to pharmacists
and improvement in their knowledge with professional inservice
education programs. Each pharmacist completed a multiple
choice test (50 questions) just before (pre-test) and at
the end (post-test) of the six-day (totally 40 hours) education
program. Attendants were not requested to provide their
name or initials on the test. The questions were prepared
by the lecturers. Totally 95 pharmacists (92% retail pharmacists,
38% male, mean age ± SD 37.6 ± 10.1) attended
the program. The tests were scored over 100 total points.
The mean score (± SD) of post-test (56.6 ±
10.3) was considerably higher than that of pre-test (36.1
± 7.85). Only 3.2% of the attendees were successful
(scored over 50%) at the pre-test. However, the rate of
success improved significantly at the post-test, to 77.8%.
Professional inservice education programs can be beneficial
for pharmacists, especially to keep their knowledge current
and to review essential information previously learned.
Key Words :
Professional Inservice Education, pharmacist
education, improvement in knowledge.
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