In this study,we developed a postgraduate education program designed to cultivate pharmacists who can contribute to the proper use of non-prescription drugs.In the program,which comprises several workshops,4 cases of a patient wishing to buy a cold medicine are presented and the response to the patient is discussed in small groups (small group discussion,SGD).This was a comparative study of thirty-one pharmacists working in 4 community pharmacies in the Tokyo area,who were assigned to an intervention group who took the program and a control group who did not take it,with 16 persons in the former and 15 in the latter.The program was conducted from March 17 to 25,2009.
To evaluate the program’s effectiveness,1 week after it had finished,we conducted a test with simulated patients (SP),comprising 21 items related to obtaining information on patient symptoms and histories.For obtaining these 2 categories of information,the intervention group achieved 8.1±2.9 items,while those in the control group achieved 3.3±1.8 items (mean ±SD),showing that members of the intervention group collected significantly more drug information (p <0.01).We also found that the items discussed in the SGD in the intervention program had a higher rate of implementation in the simulated patient test (p <0.01,r =0.828).In conclusion,the program proved useful for pharmacists working in community pharmacies by improving the support they could give regarding the proper use of non-prescription drugs.
