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Comparison of the knowledge and skill levels of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians on the implementation of inhaler drug-delivery devices: a cross-sectional study in Şanlıurfa, Turkey

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Abstract

Background

Healthcare professionals play an important role in training patients to use inhaler drug-delivery devices (IDDD) effectively with an accurate inhaler technique. In Turkey, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians usually provide information to patients about the use of IDDD in community pharmacies.

Objective

The objective of this study was to determine the knowledge and skill levels of the pharmacists and pharmacy technicians consulted in the utilisation of IDDD in Turkey, and to identify whether there is a difference between the pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in terms of their knowledge and skill levels.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted between December 2018 and March 2019 among 150 pharmacists and 185 pharmacy technicians in Şanlıurfa, Turkey. While the knowledge levels of participants were evaluated by a written questionnaire containing closed-ended questions, their skill levels on each IDDD according to the correct utilization of the inhaler medications were evaluated by structured observations using the IDDD evaluation form.

Results

A significantly higher, accurate knowledge rate was observed in pharmacists than pharmacy technicians (62.2% vs 56.1%; p = 0.036). It is underlined that high practical skills of the pharmacists and the pharmacy technicians are indicated as 86.0% and 84.4% on the systems of Neohaler™ and Turbuhaler®. Diskhaler™ is determined to have the lowest corresponding skill level among the pharmacists (21.3%) and the pharmacy technicians (15.0%). As to the implementation of all IDDDs, the skill levels with the highest inaccuracy and inadequacy are identified in the steps of “Shake the inhaler,” “Exhale,” “Breath away from the device,” “Hold your breath for 10 second,” and “Explode the capsule by pressing once the clip next to the device”. It has been observed that the pharmacists perform certain steps of Sonahler®, Diskus™, Aerolizer®, Neohaler™, and Diskhaler™ systems with significantly greater accuracy than the pharmacy technicians.

Conclusions

This study demonstrates that the pharmacists and pharmacy technicians complete most of the steps in the IDDD utilization, except for the Diskhaler™, but they do not perform some of the critical steps required for effective treatment, and they do not have adequate knowledge on IDDD utilization. The level of knowledge and skill of the pharmacist technicians on the IDDD utilization is lower than that of the pharmacists.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Pharmacology, Institute of Health Sciences, Harran University, Şanlıurfa, Turkey

    Didem Imamoglu

  2. Department of Medical Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Harran University, 63050, Şanlıurfa, Turkey

    Zehra Yilmaz

  3. Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Harran University, Şanlıurfa, Turkey

    Ibrahim Koruk

Authors
  1. Didem Imamoglu
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  2. Zehra Yilmaz
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  3. Ibrahim Koruk
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. DI acquired the field data. IK undertook the data analysis. ZY wrote the first draft of the manuscript. DI and IK reviewed the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zehra Yilmaz.

Ethics declarations

Funding

No additional funding was received for this study.

Conflicts of interest/competing interests

Didem Imamoglu, Zehra Yilmaz, and Ibrahim Koruk have no conflicts of interest that are directly relevant to the content of this article.

Ethics approval

Ethics approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of Medicine Faculty at Harran University (Approval No. 2016/11.09).

Consent to participate

Participants provided their consent to participate at the beginning of the questionnaire.

Consent for publication

Participants agreed to the publication of their data.

Availability of data and material

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

Not applicable.

Supplementary Information

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Supplementary file1 (DOCX 17 kb)

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Imamoglu, D., Yilmaz, Z. & Koruk, I. Comparison of the knowledge and skill levels of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians on the implementation of inhaler drug-delivery devices: a cross-sectional study in Şanlıurfa, Turkey. Drugs Ther Perspect 38, 362–372 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40267-022-00933-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40267-022-00933-7

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