Assessment of Asthma Resources and Educational Opportunities for Pharmacists and Pharmacy Students
Objective: To determine the most appropriate format of education for pharmacists and pharmacy students in Utah to ensure adequate knowledge in asthma therapies and asthma self-management education (SME).
Methods: An electronic survey was sent to approximately 3,500 licensed pharmacists and pharmacy interns in the state of Utah. Questions included participant demographics, the likelihood of participating in asthma education, perceived impact of asthma education, rating of asthma self-management skills, and value of Continuing Education (CE) credits. As an incentive to complete the survey, participants were entered into a raffle for 1 of 20 Amazon gift cards. Responses were collected and analyzed using Qualtrics. Descriptive analyses included frequencies, averages, medians, and modes. Further stratification of data was conducted based on pharmacists’ practice location (rural vs. urban) and pharmacy students’ current year in school.
Results: A total of 379 responses were collected from pharmacists and pharmacy students. Out of the four listed options, the most popular format for education was an interactive webinar. Of the collected responses, 72% of pharmacists and 61% of pharmacy students indicated that they would “very likely” or “likely” participate in an interactive webinar if offered in the next year. 53% of pharmacists felt that asthma education would “greatly increase” or “moderately increase” their likelihood of offering asthma SME to patients in comparison to 97% of pharmacy students. In regards to CE credit value, 62% of pharmacists and 50% of pharmacy students highly valued CE credit as part of continuing asthma education.
Conclusions: Both pharmacists and pharmacy students in Utah indicated that they would more likely participate in an interactive webinar for asthma education compared to the other provided options. By understanding the most appropriate and desired education modality, applicable asthma education can be properly communicated. In the state of Utah, the profession of pharmacy sees high value in providing asthma SME and agree upon the importance of providing continued education on the topic to be able to provide these services.
Published in College of Pharmacy, Virtual Poster Session Spring 2020
Hi Ashley. Thank you for your work on helping identify the best ways to provide asthma education to pharmacist and pharmacy students. The Utah Department of Health looks forward to applying the lessons learned in our efforts.
Hi Nicole! Thank you so much for your kind words. I’m glad that I was able to help the DOH gather more data to better understand the needs of pharmacist in regards to asthma education.
Do you know if there are plans to develop such a webinar? Hopefully, they would actually participate!
Hi Dr. Henchey! At this moment, I haven’t heard any information about developing a webinar. That would be the next best step in utilizing this information we have gathered on the preferred methods of education – especially since guidelines just updated last year.
Ashley, wonderful work. This is so important for the state to know. I’m glad the project came to fruition and that you were able to complete it. It will be interesting to see to what extent, once this takes place, how many people participate. It does seem to be, however, a great topic for CE to increase pharmacists’ education and improve patient care.
Hi Dr. Keefe! Thank you for your comment. I’m extremely glad that we were able to move forward with this project and gathered this information on the pharmacists of our state. Asthma education is important and should definitely be explored more in the future to ensure that all our pharmacist are able to provide this service to patients