Evaluating the effectiveness of flowcharts integrating pharmacology and pharmacotherapeutics content as an instructional methods in therapeutics course module.

Abstract

The curriculum at Western New England University, College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences uses an integrated approach to teach the pharmacotherapeutics courses in the 2nd year of their Pharm D program. This approach incorporates didactic learning of pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, and pharmacotherapeutics of an organ system / disease state in a single module. An example of this is the integrated acute care cardiovascular disease module which covers the pharmacotherapeutics of disease states such as coronary artery disease, shock, and arrhythmias. Given the complex nature of these topics, teaching the module poses unique challenges for the learners and has historically resulted in poor course outcomes. In an effort to improve learner understanding and application of material, we restructured the course to not only improve content flow, but also introduced new teaching tools to improve learning. One such tool is the development of flowcharts that integrate concepts of pharmacology with therapeutics. Flowcharts with skeletal outlines of key points were provided to the learners on the College’s course management site. The instructors completed the charts using a doc cam system during class at the end of each disease state. A pre‐ and post‐survey was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of these flowcharts. A pre‐survey showed that 83% (n=45) agreed that flowchart use would improve their knowledge, the post‐survey results demonstrated that the majority of learners (91%, n=60) agreed that this teaching tool did indeed help improve their overall knowledge of course content. While, 90% (n=60) agreed that flowcharts improved their understanding of pharmacology, 95% of the surveyed participants agreed that flowcharts helped them understand the role of drugs in pharmacotherapy. Furthermore, 96% (n=60) of the participants agreed that they would like to see more use of flowcharts in the other pharmacotherapeutics modules. The survey results also indicated that classroom participation improved while completing the flowcharts during class (n= 60, 84%). In addition, the course assessment outcomes in the module also improved with a decrease in course failure rates versus previous years. The results from our study indicates that the use of flowcharts improved course organization, content delivery and application in an acute care cardiovascular disease pharmacotherapeutics module. The flowcharts provide a decision‐making framework to follow that helps the learners apply the specific information required to make informed therapeutic decisions. We believe that the use of these flowcharts benefit student learning and understanding and can be used in other disease state modules