The Awareness and Knowledge of Pharmacists about Pediatric Doses

Hatem A. Hejaz, Alaa Khraiwesh, Halima Karma, Inas Nassar and Baha Halawani

Background and Objective: Pediatric patients are at high risk of medication errors. Thus, pediatric prescriptions are often a source of anxiety for community pharmacists. The doses of pediatric drugs cannot be estimated directly from the adult doses. Children and infants present challenges with the drug doses and they have to be highly taken care of. This study aimed to measure the awareness role of Palestinian Pharmacists and their knowledge about pediatric doses. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study that targeted Palestinian Pharmacists from different cities. This study used an online questionnaire (Arabic version) for data collection. Two hundred sixty-seven pharmacists completed the questionnaire and the majority (34.1%, n = 91 out of 267) were from the Hebron Governorate. Different types of questions were used to measure the pharmacists’ awareness and knowledge about paediatrics drug doses. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25 was used to analyze the data collected. Results: Two hundred sixty-seven pharmacists filled and completed the questionnaire. Less than half of the participants (47.9%, n = 128) were working in the community pharmacies. Pediatric doses of certain drugs were evaluated in this study. The results were varied and depended mainly on the pharmacists’ experience. The knowledge resources about pediatric doses for most of the pharmacists who participated in this study were gained through self-study courses. The participants were agreed that additional pharmaceutical training and paediatrics drug doses related courses in the pharmacy colleges are beneficial in increasing the awareness and knowledge of pharmacists which makes the pediatric drug doses more accurate and safer. Conclusion: This study recommends raising awareness and knowledge either by continuous education and/or the pharmacy colleges should develop their curriculums and academic plans to include numbers of such courses and training.

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