Impact of Pharmacists' Training on Oral Anticoagulant Counseling

NCT ID: NCT03999905

Last Updated: 2020-04-07

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 37 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2019-04-24
• Study Completion Date: 2019-10-10

Brief Summary

This study evaluates the impact of community pharmacists' educational training on the nature and adequacy of counseling provided to patients on warfarin, an oral anticoagulant. Half of the community pharmacists participating in the study will receive a two-week educational training on how to adequately counsel patients on warfarin while the other half of community pharmacists will receive the same training after the study. A mystery patient model will be used in this intervention study where six different trained and standardized individuals will act as patients. Each of these mystery patients will supposedly have pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, or atrial fibrillation. The mystery patient will visit each pharmacy to buy warfarin or complain about adverse drug reaction been experienced. It is expected that pharmacists will provide relevant information and counseling to these patients on the use of the medication warfarin and how to handle the adverse drug reactions.

Detailed Description

Although direct oral anticoagulants also have their limitations (such as the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding) they are not as prominent as that of warfarin but still important to consider before prescribing to patients. These limitations associated with the use of oral anticoagulants prove that there is need for special counseling of patients placed on oral anticoagulants. Counseling, as an important aspect of drug therapy management, is somewhat technical and requires a peculiar way of providing vital information on drug therapy within the shortest possible time. Pharmacists, who are key members of the healthcare team, are tasked with this role more than others and as such this area is of optimum importance.

Proper and adequate counseling on oral anticoagulants is essential for optimal use of the drug and to reduce the number of incidence of adverse drug reactions. Adequate counseling cannot be achieved without proper training. This aspect is seen to be lacking due to the suboptimal performance discovered in research among healthcare professionals including pharmacists with regards to counseling of patients on oral anticoagulant use Mystery patients in pharmacy practice research are a very reliable means of obtaining unbiased data on pharmacists with regards to counseling. This study, therefore, is aimed at providing counseling training to community pharmacists and evaluating the impact of the training on patients indirectly using the mystery patient model.

Conditions

Deep Vein Thrombosis; Pulmonary Embolism; Atrial Fibrillation

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
• Blinding Strategy: DOUBLE

Study Groups

Intervention Arm

Online training on Oral anticoagulant counseling.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Counseling training

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Online training using Moodle.

Control Arm

No counseling training

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Counseling training

Online training using Moodle.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Community Pharmacists with at least one-year practice experience
• Community pharmacies that stock and dispense warfarin

Exclusion Criteria

• Community pharmacists working in order sectors

• Minimum Eligible Age: 20 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

University of Ibadan

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

SEGUN SHOWANDE

Principal Investigator

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Segun J Showande, Ph.D

Role: STUDY_DIRECTOR

University of Ibadan

Locations

Community Pharmacies in Ibadan Metropolis

Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

Countries

Nigeria

Other Identifiers

PharmImpact001

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id