Pharmacist knowledge of gout management: impact of an educational intervention.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Pharmacists play a key role in community gout education. We investigated pharmacist knowledge of gout management and developed an educational intervention which was assessed in a cohort of Irish pharmacists.

METHODS:

A ten-question questionnaire about gout management was developed to assess pharmacists' knowledge. A 14 min 26 s video educational intervention was co-designed by a rheumatologist, a pharmacist, and designer of pharmacy education resources. The effectiveness of this pharmacy-specific intervention was assessed using the same questionnaire in 53 pharmacists (25 in the intervention group; 28 in the control group). Contingency tables were used to analyse differences between groups.

RESULTS:

There were 173 pharmacist respondents to the initial survey; 35.3% answered that first-line therapy for gout involves a combination of a xanthine oxidase inhibitor (e.g., allopurinol) combined with a prophylactic agent (e.g., colchicine), and 28.9% of respondents answered that colchicine prophylaxis should be used when initiating urate-lowering therapy. Following the educational intervention, pharmacist's knowledge about gout management increased across many domains, including serum urate targets when using urate-lowering therapy (p = 0.006), use of colchicine prophylaxis (p = 0.011), and duration of colchicine use (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSION:

Gout management recommendations can be impeded if translation into pharmacy practice is neglected. Pharmacists are a valuable information resource for patients. Co-designing a brief education intervention with pharmacists is an effective, low-cost way to increase pharmacist knowledge on the management of gout.

• Authors: Emma R Dorris, Mariosa Kieran, Nicola Dalbeth, Geraldine McCarthy
• Journal: BMC rheumatology (BMC Rheumatol) Vol. 6 Issue 1 Pg. 30 (May 23 2022) ISSN: 2520-1026 [Electronic] England
• PMID: 35599318 (Publication Type: Journal Article)
• Copyright: © 2022. The Author(s).