The Impact of Intervention on Pharmacists’ Counselling on Patients’ Knowledge and Opinion of Antibacterial Usage

Abstract

The knowledge and opinion of patients on antibacterial usage depends on pharmacist’s counselling. In Nigeria, study assessing patients’ perception of pharmacists’ antibacterial counselling is scarce. This study assessed the knowledge and opinion of patients on antibacterial usage as a result of pharmacists’ counselling pre and post intervention. The study was a cross sectional study among 409 outpatients with antibacterial prescriptions in 17-government-owned secondary healthcare facilities in Ogun State of Nigeria between July 2017 and May 2018. The knowledge and the opinion of the patients were determined via structured questionnaire and deficiency was addressed via intervention training for the pharmacists. Re-assessment was carried out after a month.
 Four hundred and nine patients participated at each of the two phases of the study. The mean age at the baseline survey, was 43.9 ± 14.9 and the age range was 19 - 87 years while at the post intervention survey, the mean age was 44.1 ± 15.7 and the age range was from 18 to 91 years. The patients that were probed on drugs they had at hand or at home increased from 20 (4.9%) to 263 (64.3%) between the two phases. Seventeen, (4.2%) and 171 (41.8) claimed to receive counselling on necessity of completing the course of therapy at the two phases respectively. The survey confirmed that 284 (69.4%) and 319 (77.9%) at the two phases respectively were of the view that counselling on drugs is best done by pharmacists. Two hundred and fifty six (62.7%) and 262 (64.1%) patients rated the counselling they received as ≥ 70% at the two phases respectively. There was significant improvement in the knowledge and opinion of patients on antibacterial usage due to pharmacists’ counselling post intervention p < .05. Constant training on antibacterial counselling should therefore be encouraged among pharmacists.