IJPP 2009, 17: 151–155 ß 2009 The Authors Received June 30, 2008 Accepted January 26, 2009 DOI 10.1211/ijpp/17.03.0005 ISSN 0961-7671 Correspondence: Dr Mayyada Wazaify, Department of Biopharmaceutics and Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, The University of Jordan, Amman 11942, Jordan. E-mail: m.wazaify@ju.edu.jo Research Paper Drug information resources at community pharmacies in Amman, Jordan Mayyada Wazaify a , Mais Maani a and Douglas Ball b a Department of Biopharmaceutics and Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan and b Department of Pharmacy Practice, Faculty of Pharmacy, Kuwait University, Kuwait Abstract Objectives The aim of this study was to investigate the drug information resources available in community pharmacies in Amman, Jordan. Methods A total of 156 private community (retail) pharmacies in different parts of Amman, the capital of Jordan, were recruited by personal contact. Pharmacists at the sample pharmacies completed a self-administered questionnaire that consisted of two sections. The first section elicited the drug information resources available in their pharmacies. The second section presented five mock medicines information scenarios and asked respondents to identify the most suitable information resource to be used from a given list. Answers then were coded and entered into SPSS for Windows for statistical analysis. Key findings All pharmacies had at least one reference book, but most were outdated. The Monthly Index of Medical Specialties (MIMS) was the most commonly found (n = 101; 64.7%), and 40.4% (n = 63) had internet access. Only 19.2% (n = 30) of the respondents reported getting medicines information directly from pharmaceutical companies, usually through pharmaceutical representatives. Most pharmacists could identify appropriate information resources for drug dosing and side effects but did not fare well for medicine identification, drug interactions and primary research evidence. Conclusions The quality of drug information resources in private community pharmacies in Amman is far from optimal. This will affect the quality of information provided to patients and prescribers and have an adverse effect on the role that pharmacists can play in the health system in Jordan. Keywords community pharmacy; drug information; information sources; Jordan Introduction Provision of drug information is becoming an integral part of the evolving ‘extended roles’ of the community pharmacist. [1,2] These roles include educating, monitoring and caring for patients in collaboration with other healthcare professionals. Accordingly, pharmacists will be required to provide high-quality drug information, which leads to an increasing requirement for reliable, accurate, high-quality and up-to-date information resources. Many types of drug and health questions are encountered on a daily basis in the community pharmacy setting. These include drug–drug interactions, adverse drug reactions and self-medication requests. Choosing the right information source is a very important step in answering any of these queries. In medical literature, information resources are divided into three categories: primary (e.g. biomedical journals), secondary (e.g. PubMed) and tertiary (e.g. reference books). [1] In the absence of reliable independent resources, pharmacists may have to rely on advice from colleagues, pharmaceutical companies or even their own experience. There is a paucity of information in the literature regarding the type of reference sources that are used by community pharmacists to answer drug information questions. Nevertheless, published research shows that the majority of community pharmacists are still only partially satisfied with the sources of drug information currently available, and that the internet still plays a minor role for solving drug-related problems in daily practice. [3–10] A study was conducted on the need for and use of drug information resources in community pharmacies in Switzerland, which showed that pharmacists primarily used the official Swiss Drug Reference Book, which did not provide the latest available information. Their second resource was the pharmaceutical manufacturers, followed by 151 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ijpp/article/17/3/151/6130471 by guest on 17 February 2024