Dataset Information

Healthcare professionals' level of medication knowledge in Africa: a systematic review.

ABSTRACT:

Aims

Understanding how much healthcare professionals (HCPs) know about medication can help in devising strategies to improve rational medication use. This study aimed to synthesize information on the level of medication knowledge of HCPs in Africa.

Method

We performed a systematic literature study in Embase and PubMed. We included original studies quantifying HCPs' medication knowledge, published between 2012 and 2016. We extracted disease focus, country, number and type of HCPs included and all medication-related knowledge questions and scored the quality of papers. The outcome measure was the percentage of HCPs who correctly answered medication knowledge questions.

Results

We identified 64 studies from 12 African countries, comprising 13?911 HCPs, mostly nurses/midwifes and physicians. We extracted 306 medication-related knowledge questions, and only 52% (SD 28) of HCPs correctly answered them. Knowledge questions were mainly about medication prescribed for communicable diseases (70%), followed by non-communicable diseases (11%), and family planning/gynaecology (10%). Most papers concluded that there was a considerable medication knowledge gap among HCPs.

Conclusion

We found a low level of medication knowledge across different disease areas, countries and HCPs. This underlines the continuous need to strengthen the undergraduate and postgraduate education in (clinical) pharmacology and therapeutics in Africa.

SUBMITTER: Berhe DF

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6256006 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Healthcare professionals' level of medication knowledge in Africa: a systematic review.

Berhe Derbew Fikadu DF Taxis Katja K Haaijer-Ruskamp Flora M FM Mol Peter G M PGM

British journal of clinical pharmacology 20181014 12

<h4>Aims</h4>Understanding how much healthcare professionals (HCPs) know about medication can help in devising strategies to improve rational medication use. This study aimed to synthesize information on the level of medication knowledge of HCPs in Africa.<h4>Method</h4>We performed a systematic literature study in Embase and PubMed. We included original studies quantifying HCPs' medication knowledge, published between 2012 and 2016. We extracted disease focus, country, number and type of HCPs i ...[more]

PMID: 30171617

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Dataset Information

Healthcare professionals' level of medication knowledge in Africa: a systematic review.

Aims

Method

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Healthcare professionals' level of medication knowledge in Africa: a systematic review.

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