Agreement of medicine and pharmacy students on quality of drug information

Abstract

Objective: Drug information responses are usually given by pharmacists to physicians. These responses are intended to improve interprofessional care and patient outcomes. This study was conducted to assess if medicine and pharmacy students agree on the quality of drug information responses. Methods: All patient or population-specific responses created in 2021 by the pharmacy students during their final year drug information rotation at Thumbay University Hospital, United Arab Emirates were evaluated by three pharmacy students and a medical student of the next cohort. In 2021, a total of 148 patient or population-focused drug information responses were prepared. A content-validated assessment rubric with seven elements was used to assess each drug information response in 2022. SPSS version 26 was used to assess agreement between pharmacy and medicine students using Kappa statistics. Results: Quality of drug information was rated high (very much and rather much combined) by pharmacy and medicine students in a range of 61% to 90% for all quality elements. The same ratings of medicine and pharmacy students (agreement) were observed at more than 50% only for three quality elements between two pharmacy students with the medical student. Poor agreement exists between medicine and pharmacy students on their rating of the quality of drug information (Kappa <0.7). Some of these kappa coefficients had a p-value less than 0.05. Conclusion: Both medicine and pharmacy students rated drug information reports as of reasonable quality, but their agreements were poor on the quality of drug information. It shows the need for interprofessional education in experiential learning. Agreement on quality of drug information responses improved after the students completed an interprofessional drug information task. The authors recommend a full drug information rotation of medicine and pharmacy students.