A Peer-Teaching Model to Reinforce Pharmacy Students’ Clinical Knowledge of Commonly Prescribed Medications

Abstract

To increase student knowledge and confidence regarding commonly prescribed medications by completing a series of peer teaching activities. Methods. Third-year pharmacy students (n=98) engaged in the RxReady peer teaching series. Each student was assigned a drug to learn in-depth; however, twenty-four students were randomly selected and guided to provide peer teaching regarding a single medication. Assessment methods included pre-and post-quiz and anonymous surveys about the peerteaching modality. Students also provided qualitative feedback on the series at the end of course survey. Results. Among 96 students who completed the pre-and post-quizzes, there was a mean increase of 15% (SD=11) on the post-quiz compared to the pre-quiz. Ninety-two (96%) students achieved a higher score on the post-quiz. There was no difference in mean percent change between pre-and post-quiz for students who presented in class compared versus those who did not (17% [SD=10] versus 15% [SD=11], respectively). Results indicated that student-reported confidence significantly improved across all drug knowledge categories; in each category, the median confidence score increased from 2 (somewhat confident) to 3 (moderately confident). Generally, student qualitative feedback was positive and provided suggestions to improve the content and design. Conclusion.Peer teaching approach can assist in targeting gaps in drug knowledge and help to build learner-reported confidence.

Student performance and perspective on repeated top drug information assessments in a pharmacy skills laboratory course

“…Intuitively, pharmacy programmes have incorporated various strategies within their curricula to assess and improve student knowledge about the top drug information. Peer-teaching (Tsai et al, 2021) and spaced retrieval (Terenyi, Anksorus & Persky, 2019) are strategies that have been documented to improve student knowledge regarding top drugs. Receiving practical experience through community Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experiences (IPPE) was also found to positively impact student performance in a top 200 drug course (Mospan, Gillette & DeBerry, 2019).…”

“…Skills-based lab courses provide an opportunity to bolster knowledge retention in pharmacy students by providing opportunities for clinical application of the taught information within the pharmacy curriculum (Rodin et al, 2022). Pharmacy educators have explored strategies, including gamification of brand and generic drug names (Whitman, Tanzer & Nemec, 2019) and peer teaching models to discuss information about commonly prescribed drugs (Tsai et al, 2021), to improve retention of top drug information. These two strategies were reported to improve student scores on top drug quiz and their confidence in recalling drug information.…”