Evaluation of Pharmacy Students' Perception of Opioid / Opiate Dependence

NCT ID: NCT03859778

Last Updated: 2019-05-24

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Total Enrollment: 2034 participants
• Study Classification: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2019-01-14
• Study Completion Date: 2019-03-31

Brief Summary

The pharmacist in his professional activity may have to manage opioid dependent patients. This professional activity will result in the provision of opioid substitution treatment (OST), single-use syringes, harm reduction kits and a prevention advice for the reduction of toxicity and infection risks.

Since the 1990s, the consumption of OST has been steadily increasing. According to the OFDT (French Observatory of Drugs and Drug Addiction), the number of patients under OST is about 150 000 patients. Since high-dose buprenorphine is prescribed for approximately two-thirds of patients, it remains the most frequently prescribed OST in France.

Recently, a French association assisting drug users (ASUD - Auto-support des usagers de drogues) performed a study in Paris (20/07/2018 - 25/08/2018) to assess the delivery of opioid replacement therapies by community pharmacists. In this study, 71% of pharmacists refused to deliver opioid replacement therapies. The main reasons reported were security (56%) and activity saturation, meaning that pharmacists considered that they had too many patients using opioid drugs. In France, the refusal of a pharmacist to deliver drugs is a punishable offence. According to the Code of ethics of pharmacists, pharmacists must respect life and people without discrimination. Pharmacists have a low perception of patients suffering from opioid addiction. Another study performed by ASUD in 93 community pharmacies, showed that pharmacists used the term "toxicomaniacs" instead of "drug users". Most pharmacists had had a bad experience with drugs users, with physical and verbal aggressions. The conclusions of this study showed that pharmacists lacked knowledge of drug users and drug use. Pharmacists knew about harm reduction kits for opioid users (containing sterile syringes, needles, water, antiseptics, etc.) and had already opened them, but very few knew how to use them. More worryingly, some pharmacists did not understand the harm reduction strategies available It thus appears that community pharmacists have a difficult relationship with opioid-dependent patients, even though these pharmacists have received education in the management of addictions during their studies. Indeed, it can consider that these courses should help to better understand the addictive disease both in its nosological / semiological and therapeutic components. Thus, it would be interesting to evaluate the impact of addiction education on pharmacists' perception of opioid dependence. In this perspective, it would be interesting to focus on pharmacy students.

The objective of this study will be to evaluate the perception by pharmacy students of opioid dependent patients. Investigator would like to know if pharmacy students consider opioid addiction to be an illness and whether having taken education on drug use and addictions changes this perception.

Detailed Description

This observational and cross-sectional study will be conducted as a survey using the REDCap software and the response to this survey will be done online, in real time, with an automatic, secure and centralized data collection (CHU Clermont-Ferrand).

French pharmacy students will be contacted by email thanks to the student associations and scolarity departments. Answer to the survey will be done online.

Conditions

Opioid-Related Disorders

Study Design

• Observational Model Type: COHORT
• Study Time Perspective: CROSS_SECTIONAL

Study Groups

pharmacy students

survey

Intervention Type: OTHER

French pharmacy students will be contacted by email thanks to the student associations and scolarity departments. Answer to the survey will be done online

Interventions

survey

French pharmacy students will be contacted by email thanks to the student associations and scolarity departments. Answer to the survey will be done online

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• French pharmacy students

Exclusion Criteria

• Age <18 years
• Other health students
• Graduated pharmacist
• First year pharmacy student

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

UFR Pharmacie (Clermont-Ferrand)

UNKNOWN

Sponsor Role: collaborator

University Hospital, Clermont-Ferrand

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

David BALAYSSAC

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

University Hospital, Clermont-Ferrand

Locations

Chu Clermont-Ferrand

Clermont-Ferrand, , France

Countries

France

Other Identifiers

CHU-427

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id