%0 Journal Article
%T Patients¡¯ Assessment of Pharmacists¡¯ Medication Counseling in a Psychiatric Hospital in Nigeria
%A I Offor
%A EFO Enato
%J Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research
%D 2011
%I University of Benin
%X Purpose: To assess the impact of an educational intervention on pharmacists¡¯ medication counselling practice, and evaluate the reliability of an instrument to assess medication counselling in a psychiatric setting. Methods: The study was undertaken on a sample of 297 psychiatric patients. Pre- and post-intervention surveys were conducted immediately after the patients had been attended to at the hospital¡¯s outpatient pharmacy, using a self-administered questionnaire, comprising 4 components. Internal consistency of the questionnaire was computed using Cronbach¡¯s alpha. Differences between means or proportions of variables were evaluated using Student¡¯s t-test or Chi-square test, as appropriate. Results: The study achieved a response rate of 89 and 92 % for pre¨C and post¨Cintervention surveys, respectively. Cronbach¡¯s alpha reliability of the instrument was found to be 0.74. The mean values for the different components evaluated during the pre- and post¨Cintervention surveys were: Needs assessment, 1.89¡À 0.76 and 2.58 ¡À 0.61; Precaution and warning, 1.50 ¡À 0.67 and 2.15 ¡À 0.63; Managing therapy, 1.87 ¡À 0.89 and 2.46 ¡À 0.78, and Communication, 2.23 ¡À 0.77 and 2.69 ¡À 0.62, respectively. The post¨Cintervention results were significantly higher in all the components (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The educational intervention provided for pharmacists resulted in an improvement in patient counselling. The survey instrument achieved a fairly satisfactory reliability result in a psychiatric setting. Efforts to sustain this intervention are recommended.
%U http://www.ajol.info/index.php/tjpr/article/view/69567