CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION EXPERIENCES AND NEEDS OF PHARMACISTS IN IBADAN AND ABEOKUTA, NIGERIA

Abstract

Professional organisations throughout the world encourage their members to participate in Continuing Education (CE) activities with a view to meeting the changing challenges and demands of their practice. In Nigeria, there is dearth of information about the forms of CE activities that pharmacists undertake. This study was therefore designed to assess the types of CE activities pharmacists participate in and the factors which influence their involvement in such activities. The study was a cross-sectional survey of Hospital Pharmacists (HP) and Community Pharmacists (CP) in two cities. All the 142 community and hospital pharmacists in Ibadan and the 122 community and hospital pharmacists in Abeokuta identified using the state pharmacy registration records were invited to participate in the study. Two hundred (75.5%) of the 264 pharmacists participated in the study. A validated self-administered semi-structured questionnaire was used to assess respondents’ history of involvement in CE as well as barriers and facilitating factors which influenced their participation in CE. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square statistics were used for data analysis. Respondents’ mean age was 41.8±13.2 years, and 62.5% of them were males. About half (51.5%) of the respondents were HP while 48.5% were CP. Eighty-one percent were involved in the Mandatory Continuous Professional Development (MCPD) within the five years preceding the survey. Majority (83.5%) undertook In-Service Training (IST) within the two years preceding the study. Educational materials read as part of self-directed learning initiatives in the six months preceding the study included drug reference manual (78.0%), general pharmacy textbooks (77.0%) and professional journals (61.0%). More pharmacists in Abeokuta (73.5%) than Ibadan (68.3%) engaged in the practice of self-study. Many pharmacists (44.5%) attended Monthly Professional Meetings (MPM) in the last three months preceding the survey. Respondents aged 30- 39years (89.2%) attended more MCPD compared with those aged 40-49years (79.4%) and those aged above 50years (60.9%) (p<0.05). More males (67.2%) than females (50.6%) were involved in self-study activities (p<0.05). Forty-five percent of HP and 38.3% of CP attended MPM. Factors that influenced respondents’ involvement in CE activities included need to update knowledge (80.0%), annual registration requirement (58.5%) and opportunities for professional networking (28.0%). More than half (55.0%) identified easy access to resources and support from employers (54.5%) as factors that motivate pharmacists to participate in CE. Barriers to involvement in CE activities included lack of time (42.8%), funds (28.8%) and scarcity of CE opportunities (28.8%). Most pharmacists (95.0%) were willing to attend future CE programmes. The CE programmes desired by respondents were conferences (62.5%), postgraduate studies (61.0%), MCPD (54.0%) and IST (47.5%). The expressed CE needs included pharmaceutical care (54.0%) and pharmaceutical management practice (27.0%). Participation in continuing education activities among the pharmacists was high in-spite of some resource constraints. Advocacy and motivational strategies are needed to maintain the practice among hospital and community pharmacists.