Knowledge about the availability of the pharmacist in the Nuclear Medicine Department: A questionnaire-based study among health-care professionals

Abstract

Objective:The objective of this study was to analyze the knowledge about the availability of the pharmacist in the nuclear medicine department among health-care professionals through a prospective cohort study.Methods:A total of 741 health-care professionals participated in the study by answering 10 simple questions about the role of the pharmacist in the nuclear medicine department and the availability of pharmacist in the nuclear medicine department. An online questionnaire system was used to conduct the study, and participants were invited to participate through personal communications and by promoting the study through social websites including Facebook, LinkedIn and Google (including Gmail and Google+). The study was conducted between April 2013 and March 2014 using the http://www.freeonlinesurveys.com/Webserver. Finally, the data provided by 621 participants was analyzed. Group frequency analysis was performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16 (SPSS Inc. USA).Results:The participants were from Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, UAE and Nepal. In total, 312 (50.2%) female health-care professionals and 309 (49.8%) male health-care professionals participated in the study. Of the 621 participants, 390 were working in hospitals, and 231 were not working in hospitals. Of the participants who were working in hospitals, 57.6% were pharmacists. The proportion of study participants who were aware of nuclear pharmacists was 55.39%. Awareness about the role of the pharmacist in nuclear medicine was poor.Conclusion:The role of the pharmacist in a nuclear medicine unit needs to be highlighted and promoted among health-care professionals and hence that the nuclear medicine team can provide better pharmaceutical care.

Knowledge of Pharmacists about Nuclear Pharmacy Services in Saudi Arabia

“…[24,25] In this study, pharmacists' knowledge regarding radiopharmaceutical products is inferior, as reported by a previous study. (7) The highest knowledge with commonly used radioactive drug-like 131-Sodium Iodide 201 TI-Thaluim solution might be different from radioactive drugs used in an earlier study. [16] Most of the responders used drug information resources (e.g., PubMed) and scientific literature from the internet on nuclear pharmacy, which shows that the pharmacists were more familiar with drug information resources and online resources.…”

“…Another study showed that the availability of nuclear pharmacy at healthcare organizations is only 16%. [7] In this study, pharmacist's knowledge of nuclear medicine was affected by various factors, such as location. The southern region scored the lowest about knowledge of nuclear pharmacy, which may be because the pharmacists were not properly working in nuclear medicine or did not provide nuclear pharmacy services at their healthcare institutions.…”

“…[11,17,24,25] The previous study also reveals less awareness among healthcare providers about nuclear pharmacists' jobs. [7] In contrast, they had the lowest score knowledge about local guidelines or preparation of parenteral radioactive medications or the absence of nuclear pharmacy resources. That's related to might few pharmacists working at nuclear medicine departments, or the pharmacy department did not provide nuclear pharmacy services.…”

“…Besides, providing radiopharmaceutical-related information, monitoring patients undergoing radioactive treatment, and preventing radioactiverelated problems, included distributive and clinical pharmacy activities. [1,3,[4][5][6][7][8][9] So far, more than 100 radioactive drugs are used to treat various disorders, including cancer and thyroid gland disorders; they are also used in pain management and diagnosis. Most radiopharmaceutical products are used for primary diagnosis, whereas other products are used in disease management.…”

The Practice of Nuclear Pharmacy Services by Pharmacists in Saudi Arabia

“…[34] Moreover, nuclear pharmacists provide clinical activities to the patients. [29][30][31]33,[35][36][37] Despite all the previous positive answers, the majority of the responders of nuclear pharmacy practice did not participate in this study. Thus, our results showed no difference between the practice of nuclear pharmacy services because of the small sample size.…”