A questionnaire survey the patient's views regarding drug information was carried on 941 outpatients from April 24 to May 10, 1997 at Fukuoka University Hospital. As a resutlt that drug information and compliance counseling was found to have been given by physicians (73%), Pharmacists (9%), both (7%) and nurses (3%). Thirty-two% of the patients showed a good understanding of the counseling and could correctly identify their medicines. Most patients who did not understand their medications very well wanted written information about the effects, side effects and drug interactions of the prescribed medicines. These patients requested physicians (75%), Pharmacists (13%) and both (9%) to give the drug information.
These results indicate that the present drug counseling to the outpatients is not sufficient. Increasted efforts by pharmacists are therefore still needed to enable patients to obtain appropriate information and thereby improve the overall effectiveness of drug therapy.

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In order to supplement our lectures on the community health care system and the role of community pharmacists, we created hypertexts linked to 300 or more Web sites related to community health care including such subject areas as community pharmacies, pharmaceutical associations and prefectural governments and then used these resources to teach undergraduate students and assessed the efficacy of this method.
The subjects consisted of undergraduate at our university (265 in 1999, 297 in 2000). Before and after reading the hypertexts, they performed a subjective self-estimation of the efficacy of learning about pharmacies and pharmacists using a questionnaire graded from -2 to + 2 points. In the analysis, the subjects were separated into two groups, those who had experienced an externship at a community pharmacy and those without any externship experience. The scores before and after reading the hypertext material were compared in each group and interindividually, and significance was assessed using the Wilcoxon signed-ranks test (P<0.05).
The scores for the question of “Do you know the function of community pharmacies ?” increased significantly (shifted to “Yes”) after reading the hypertext material in the non-experienced group. The reason for this high information reception was considered to be that hypertexts are responsive tools (responsive environments) that promote effective learning, as well because the information in the hypertexts was new and interesting for the non-experienced group. The scores for the question of “Do you want to be a community pharmacist ?” also increased significantly (shifted to “Yes”) after reading the hypertext material in the non-experienced group, and we therefore suggest that the information in the hypertexts aroused curiosity about community pharmacists (diversive curiosity). On the other hand, scores for the question of “Do you want to go on to graduate school ?”, increased significantly (shifted to “Yes”) after reading the material in the experienced group. The reason that enthusiasm for learning (intrinsic motivation) appeared to be stimulated is considered to be as follows : We set students a task of choosing their favorite community pharmacy sites, as a result, they probably accessed a number of community pharmacy sites. We therefore suggest that the image formed from the information on the sites was incongruous with that formed through their externship and that this incongruity aroused their curiosity (specific curiosity) thus resulting in an increased enthusiasm for learning.
In conclusion, we consider that our hypertext educational materials were helpful in the training of undergraduate students before an externship at a community pharmacy while these materials also helped to stimulate the intrinsic motivation for learning in students who had already experienced an externship.

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