Browsing by Author "The, Thanh Nguyen"

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    Effectiveness of educational interventions on knowledge and counseling regarding common cold management: The case of community pharmacists in Hue, Vietnam
    (Open Science Publishers LLP, 2020-05) Thi, Quynh Le; Thi, Minh Nguyet Le; Thi, Hong Phuong Vo; Viet, Thanh Truong; Thi, Hong Diep Phan; Quang, Trung Tran; Chuyen, Le; Ba, Hoang Anh Mai; Tran, Thao Nguyen Nguyen; The, Thanh Nguyen; Erwin, Martinez Faller; Thi, Ha Vo
    Objective: The aim of the study was to assess the effectiveness of educational interventions on the knowledge andcounseling practice of community pharmacists in Hue, Vietnam with respect to common cold management.Method: Thirty-eight pharmacists were invited to participate in educational initiatives, including in-class training andreference to a printed pocket handbook. The knowledge was measured before and after the interventions via a paperbased test, and actual practice was evaluated via a pseudo customer experiment a week later.Results: The interventions significantly improved pharmacists’ knowledge (p = 0.001). In the pre-test, only 37.4%of the participants provided correct answers, but this increased to 83.9% in the post-test. In the pseudo customerexperiment, pharmacists asked about patient identification, age, and symptoms (93.3%, 80.0%, and 80.0%,respectively) but not about medical and medication histories or allergies (less than 20%). All pharmacists offeredadvice as regards dosage, but only half of them shared information on drug names and indications. A third providedguidance on drug interactions. Practices related to inappropriate drug dispensing included the issuance of incorrectmedications or the sale of prescription-only drugs to customers with no prescriptions.Conclusion: Although educational interventions effectively enhance the knowledge and counseling practice ofpharmacists, a huge gap continues to exist between these variables.