Nation-Wide Survey Assessing the Knowledge and Attitudes of Romanian Pharmacists Concerning Pharmacogenetics

Abstract

Background: Pharmacogenetics (PGx) is an important component of personalized medicine that has the potential to improve medicines’ effectiveness and safety. However, despite progress in technology and availability, PGx testing application into patient-care in Eastern Europe countries, has been slow.Objectives: Our aim was to describe knowledge and attitudes of Romanian pharmacists concerning PGx, and identify potential factors limiting PGx implementation.Method: An anonymous, web-based questionnaire was distributed to Romanian pharmacists registered in the National Pharmacists’ Association (NPA) via an official e-mail sent by NPA representatives.Results: A total of 1,058 pharmacists completed the questionnaires, resulting in a response rate of 7.6%. Pharmacists were predominantly female (90.1%), younger than 49 years (87.5%) and mostly worked in community pharmacies (80.2%). Most pharmacists (64.8%) had a knowledge score between 30 and 49 points out of 60, and (75.4%) had attitude scores between 9 and 7 out of 10. Attitude and knowledge scores positively correlated.Conclusion: Despite performing fairly well on general questions regarding PGx, Romanian pharmacists may lack in-depth knowledge, which can affect their readiness to discuss PGx information with patients or other healthcare professionals. High pricing was considered an important impediment in PGx implementation.

Pharmacy students’ attitudes and intentions of pursuing postgraduate studies and training in pharmacogenomics and personalised medicine

“…Final-year students shared the lowest level of satisfaction regarding their studies which may be attributed, inter alia, to their internships at community and hospital pharmacies. These results are consistent with other studies in which 60.3% of individuals believed that their university education was insufficient and only a third of them supposed that lectures were comprehensive and clear [8,Table 7 Standardised direct, indirect and total effects for the SEM model 15]. This descending trend highlighted the insufficiency of PGx-related material in latent modules and the students' demand for a more tailored educational scheme that focuses more on learner's skills, needs and wants.…”

“…In particular, Mahmutovic et al, 2018 mentioned that 60% of the students asked would like to continue their studies in the field, Schwartz et al 2017 demonstrated that 97% of the hospital pharmacists expressed interest in continuing their training, while in Indonesia, 94.2% of pharmacists were interested in future education [42] along with Jordan where a 75% of pharmacists expressed their will to participate in postgraduate training activities or seminars [14,42,44,47]. Based on Pop et al, 2022, and Filiptsova et al, 2015, new generation of pharmacists were more progressive and willing to implement innovative technologies and interventions in their clinical practice with the objective to improve patient experience and provide them with better quality of services [8,48]. To achieve it, it is fundamental to receive official training and accreditation.…”

“…Students of the last three academic years demonstrated almost equal level of knowledge in the discipline, but much higher than those of the first and second year, also underpinning the necessity for more PGx-relevant lectures. Pop et al, 2022 made a relevant observation about information gap among Romanian pharmacists [8]. They pointed out that even if Romanian pharmacists had a relatively high level of theoretical PGx knowledge, most of them weren't aware that PGx testing was commercially available in their country for many medications [8].…”

“…Even if pharmacists' contribution to PGx clinical implementation is vital, they have a minimal involvement in the field. As reported in many studies, a great percentage of pharmacists are not aware of PGx and its applications; some of them do not know how pharmacists can be involved in the field and what are their responsibilities, while others claim to have limited or inadequate training [2,[5][6][7][8][9]. Low participation rate can decelerate the adoption of PM applications.…”

Community pharmacists’ perceived value on precision medicine, desired training components, and exposure during pharmacy education: Malaysia’s experience

“…This is probably because experiences and lessons learnt during their study years were heightened and better understood during their early career years. Similar inferences were made in a study conducted in Romania by Pop et al 2022 . A recent survey of the Southeast Asian Pharmacogenomics Research Network (SEAPHARM) showed that, in Malaysia, contents for basic genetic and pharmacogenomics are integrated within the national pharmacy curriculum.…”