Abdalla Elkhawad, Ahmed Abdel Magied, Maha Hieba, Azza Gaily, Israa Edress, Ahfad University for Women. The awareness of Sudanese pharamcists about drug-drug interaction.

Elkhawad, Abdalla ; Magied, Ahmed Abdel ; Hieba, Maha 等

Abdalla Elkhawad, Ahmed Abdel Magied, Maha Hieba, Azza Gaily, Israa Edress, Ahfad University for Women. The awareness of Sudanese pharamcists about drug-drug interaction.

This study aimed at assessment of the awareness and knowledge of the community pharmacists about drug-drug interactions. The area of the study was Khartoum, Khartoum North and Omdurman in Khartoum State. The target group included 200 pharmacists who were randomly selected and divided as follows: 70 pharmacists from Khartoum, 70 pharmacists from Omdurman and 60 pharmacists from Khartoum North. The primary data was collected through 3 prescriptions each area one prescription:

Perscription 1: captopril 20mg + Amigel

Prescription 2: Amoxicillin 500mg + Allopurianol 300mg.

Prescription 3: Asprin 300mg + I Buprofen 300mg.

Some of the findings included

--In prescription one, none of the pharmacists referred the patient back to the doctor or refused to dispense nor did any of them advised the patient to take the medicine at different times.

--For prescription two, none of the pharmacists referred the patient back to the doctor or refused to dispense but only one advised the patient to take the medicine at different times.

--In prescription three, the outcome was the same as for the other two mentioned above; except one pharmacist ask if the patient had a stroke or heart attack, two pharmacists asked if the patient was suffering from hypertension, four of them asked if the patient was suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and four off them dispensed the medicine. Nonetheless, 63 pharmacists dispensed the medicine without any comment.

Accordingly, the pharmacists awareness about drug-drug interaction seems to be very poor and they are generally not well informed about the serious interactions caused as well, they have poor knowledge in communication skills. It is recommended that the curricula of pharmacy schools and faculties should include pharmaceutical care and communication skill courses. Pharamcists should be exposed to frequent training programs to update their pharmaceutical knowledge of drug-drug interactions.