Assessment of Drug Information Service of Addis Ababa University Drug Information Center
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2012-02
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Background : Drug Information (DI) is the provision of written and/or verbal information or
advice about drugs and drug therapy in response to a request from other health care providers,
organizations, patients or other members of the public. In 2009 Addis Ababa University,
school of pharmacy established the first role model DIC in the premises of Tikur Anbcsa
Specialized hospital
Objective: To assess drug information center service utilization by health care professionals and
to evaluate the performance of the Drug Information Center of Tikur Anbcsa Specialized
hosp ital through a retrospective document review of drug related enquiries and users' perspective
Method: A Cross sectional descriptive study using both qualitative and quantitative study
methods was conducted in Tikur Anbesa Specialized Hospital, located in Addis Ababa from
September 20 11 to and January 2012. The sample size was determined by using single
population proportion formula which is 422 including 10% of a non responses rate. Since the
total population is less than 10,000 a population correct ion formula was used which make the
sample size to be 285.
The quantitative data collection was carried out in two steps. First, a retrospective evaluation of
the documented drug information requests and answers forms maintained in the drug information
documentation files of the center. The evaluation was based on the parameters such as
professional status of the enquirer, amount of queries received, places where query comes, mode
of receipt of query, purpose of enquiry, time frame to reply, category of question and reference
used. Secondly, the service provided was assessed from receivers' perspective through
questionnaire comprising questions pertaining to awareness, utilization, and sat is faction level.
The data collection tool contained four parts. The first and second part was designed to get
socio-demographic information and awareness about ole of AAU, respectively. Part three and
four had questions related to service utilization and level of satisfaction on the service provided
respectively. For the qualitative part of the study, data from the interview was collected directly
by taking field notes and transformating them to narrative types of report.
Result: Of the total of 285 sampled health professionals 247 have responded to this study
yielding a response rate of 87%. One hundred twenty seven (5 1.4%) of the health professionals
have ever heard about the drug information center found in the premises of TASH. of those who
have heard about DIC, 58(45.6%) had hi story of at least one type of service utilization provided
by the center. Regarding to their satisfaction level, 153 (62%) reported a high service
(information) satis faction level from the DIC. Retrospective analysis of the documented query
also showed that the Drug Information Center of AAU received a total of 374 different types of
queries during the period of May 2009 to August 20 11 out of which 65.2 % of the queries (drug
general information, drug availability on the market, adverse drug reaction, drug dosage ,etc)
were received from governmental hospitals and health centers.
Conclusion: over all nearly half of the respondents were unaware of the existence of the services
being provided by the drug information center of TASH. The service utilization practice
among those who were aware of the drug information center was also found low. However,
majority of the service users were satisfied by the service provided
Recommendation : The Drug Information center has to work more on awareness creation among
healthcare professionals by distributing materials such as stickers, posters and brochures.
Moreover, the center has 10 establish its own website to post information about their center and
services, provide links to related sites considered to be of acceptable quality, and as a convenient
means of receiving and answering drug information questions
Description
Keywords
Assessment of Drug Information Service of Addis Ababa University Drug Information Center