TY - JOUR AU - Hanna, Lezley-Anne AU - Rainey, Judith AU - Hall, Maurice PY - 2018/02/14 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - A questionnaire study investigating future pharmacists’ use of, and views on cognitive enhancers JF - Pharmacy Education JA - Pharm Educ VL - 18 IS - 0 SE - Research Article DO - UR - https://pharmacyeducation.fip.org/pharmacyeducation/article/view/567 SP - p 76-84 AB - <div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="section"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span><strong>Introduction:</strong> </span><span>This work aimed to ascertain future pharmacists’ use of, and attitudes towards cognitive enhancers </span>(CEs).</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong><span>Following ethical approval, all first and final year pharmacy students at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) were invited to complete a pre-piloted, non-identifiable, paper-based questionnaire during a compulsory class. Descriptive statistics were undertaken; non-parametric tests were used for comparisons with significance set at </span><em>p</em><span>&lt;0.05 </span><span>a priori</span><span>. </span></p><p><strong>Results: </strong><span>The response rates were 89.3% (Level 1) and 89.0% (Level 4) with 48.0% of respondents reporting they were CE users (largely caffeine). Additionally, 42.4% thought using pharmaceutical CEs for improving academic grades breached their Code of Conduct. Level 4 students were more likely to associate over-the-counter (OTC) and prescription-only medicines (POM) CEs with side effects than Level 1 [OTC statement </span><span>p</span><span>=0.001 and POM statement </span><em>p</em><span>=0.016]. </span></p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong><span>CE use among future pharmacists seems quite high; Level 1 students appear more naïve about safety concerns. Educational workshops could further explore ethical issues. </span></p></div></div></div></div> ER -