What if continuing education became mandatory? Opinions of Belgian community pharmacists

Abstract

Objective In July 2003, a survey (n = 1032) was conducted on issues related to continuing education for community pharmacists. This study aims to explore specific results of this survey in‐depth. The objectives were to examine how current continuing education courses can be optimised, how much interest pharmacists have in distance learning, and how pharmacists think about mandatory continuing education. Setting Community pharmacy in the Dutch‐speaking part of Belgium. Method Six focus group discussions were held: two with attenders (n = 14), two with non‐attenders (n = 13), and two with the management of the Institute for Permanent Study for Pharmacists (n = 12). A theme plan was used to moderate discussions. Framework analysis was applied to analyse data. Key findings To optimise live courses, continuing education providers should select good speakers, provide extensive course notes, and focus on issues that are relevant to day‐to‐day pharmacy practice. The interest in distance learning as a continuing education format was limited. Non‐attenders are likely to need a formal obligation to engage in continuing education, with the preferred format being live courses. By increasing patients' awareness and appreciation of pharmacists' capabilities, pharmacists could be more motivated to counsel patients, to engage in continuing education, and to accept a system of mandatory continuing education. Conclusion Implementation of mandatory continuing education in Belgium might encourage more pharmacists to take part in live continuing education courses than in distance learning. The arguments for and against mandatory continuing education as well as the suggestions for improvement of live continuing education courses should be taken into account when implementing a system of mandatory continuing education.

A Systematic Review of Models Used and Preferences for Continuing Education and Continuing Professional Development of Pharmacists

“…One included study was a systematic review, so is not included in the demographic data review here [39]. The remaining 18 studies came from seven different countries, with six coming from the United States of America [9,22,[35][36][37]40], three from Canada [25,26,33], two each from the United Kingdom [27,38], Belgium [28,29], and Australia [31,41], and one each from Egypt [34], United Arab Emirates [30], and Qatar [32]. The participant number varied by study, from nine to 4140.…”

“…The participant number varied by study, from nine to 4140. Of the studies, seven had up to 50 participants [25][26][27][28]31,37,38], five had between 50 and 100 [9,22,35,40,41], and six had over 100 participants [29,30,[32][33][34]36]. All of the studies with over 100 participants utilized a survey as their data collection method.…”

“…An additional four studies also used a survey [9,22,35,40]. Focus group was used as a solo tool in three studies [26,28,31], with course evaluation used three times [25,37,41]. One study used multiple forms of data collection; feedback, ranking, focus group and interview [38].…”

“…Interview as a solo method was used once [27]. Pharmacists were the main target of all studies, with three studies targeting community pharmacists [28,29,31], and two targeting hospital pharmacists [27,41].…”

Pharmacy technicians' views of learning and practice implementation

“…These ranged from time constraints to comments which suggested a lack of understanding of CPD, what to record and how to record it. Whereas very few studies have provided any insight into these issues with PTs, [6–8] studies do exist with the larger and more established group of registered pharmacists [16–32] …”