Utilization of electronic drug information resources by pharmacists practicing in hospital and community settings in Maiduguri, Nigeria

Abstract

Various internet - based drug information resources are now available, and widely used by pharmacists in discharging their responsibilities. The aim of this study was to explore the drug information needs and assess the use of internetbased drug information by pharmacists practicing in hos ital  and community settings in Maiduguri, Nigeria. A descriptive survey was carried out from February to April 2018. A questionnaire containing 17  questions in three sections was used to collect data from 55 purposefully sampled pharmacists. Of the 55 questionnaires distributed, 50 were eventually retrieved; giving a response rate of 90.9%. Most of the study participants (60%) had less than five years work experience and were males (68%). Majority (73%) practiced within the hospital setting. Several respondents (68%) reported that they received drug information requests from patients on a daily basis. Information commonly required by the pharmacists were in the areas of medicines information (98%), disease information  (68%) and treatment guidelines (60%). Majority (98%) reported websites as their major source of drug information and Google (84%) as one of the most common sites they visited. Most of the participants (74%) also admitted verifying drug information they obtained from the internet and many (49.9%) did so by crosschecking the information obtained from one website with that obtained from another. In conclusion, the major information  need of the pharmacists in this study was medicines information. They also commonly searched for drug information from websites, and reported  that www.google.com was their most visited site. Skilful training on drug information services provision and creation of drug information centers with adequate facilities are highly recommended.

Keywords:  Drug information, Internet, Pharmacists, Nigeria