KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE TOWARDS QUALITY USE OF MEDICINE AMONG UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

Abstract

Quality use of medicine is crucial not only to optimize health resources, but to safeguard consumers from unsafe use of medicine. Knowing Your Medicine (KYM) Campaign was launched by the Ministry of Health (MOH) Malaysia as an initiative to raise awareness to consumers on quality use of medicines in ensuring wise, safe and effective use of medicines. Materials of the campaign which is the KYM Module, is integrated in one of the elective course in UKM which is offered to undergraduate students across different faculties to increase knowledge and practice on quality use of medicine. This study aims to identify the impact of the KYM Module towards knowledge and practice of the undergraduates enrolled into the course. A one group pre and post-test research design was employed to students using purposive sampling (n=62). The questionnaire consists of three sections which are i) demographic profile, ii) knowledge assessment (14 items) and iii) practice assessment (15 items). Frequency analysis and paired sample T-test were used to measure the impact of the module. Knowledge of the undergraduates increased from fair/good to good/excellent, as knowledge score of 64.5% students reached excellent post-test compared to 35.5% pre-test. In terms of practice, a paired T-test analysis shows that there is a statistically significant increase in practice scores from pre-test (M = 4.2, SD = .472) to post-test (M = 4.57, SD = .341), t (61) =-3.859, p<.05 (two tailed). In summary, both knowledge and practice improved significantly among undergraduates after completing the module. This research serves as an important data to support the effectiveness of MOH initiative in disseminating important information regarding quality use of medicine to the public.