15th Int Social Pharmacy Workshop CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS (Queenstown, NZ)

Teaching respiratory device technique to pharmacy students: people vs technology

Sinthia Bosnic-Anticevich, Faculty of Pharmacy, Building A15, Science Road, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia. sinthia@pharm.usyd.edu.au

Background

Training pharmacists to be good educators, utilizing a variety of techniques is very important, especially when it comes to education involving devices and medication administration techniques. One of the most common situations in which pharmacists need to train patients on device technique is in the management of asthma. It is well established that patients have difficulty in learning and maintaining correct technique when it comes to the use of respiratory devices (Basheti, et al., 2005). Unfortunately, patients are often unaware of their inability to use these devices correctly and health care professionals, including pharmacists, rarely educate or review the use of these devices with patients (Basheti, et al. 2005; Chopra, et al., 2002; Kesten, et al., 1993). Research has shown that the most effective way of educating patients in correct device technique is through physical demonstration and verbal instruction (Lee-Wong & Mayo, 2003). Hence, pharmacists need to know how to use these devices themselves. Currently, second year undergraduate Bachelor of Pharmacy students at the University of Sydney are taught inhaler device technique in a respiratory tutorial as part of their Pharmacy Practice course. Training undergraduate students in this is quite time consuming thereby compromising the time available to cover more complex respiratory topics. More efficient and effective educational techniques need to be explored, including web-based technology.