Evaluation of the effectiveness of educational medical informatics tutorial on improving pharmacy students' knowledge and skills about the clinical problem-solving process

Objective:

To investigate the effectiveness of an online tutorial and its impact on improving knowledge and skills of pharmacy students in the clinical problem-solving process that is necessary to implement pharmaceutical care.

Methods:

This is a prospective interventional study conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions using four novel templates. The first two levels of Kirkpatrick’s Model (Reaction and Learning) were used.

Results:

129 participants completed all of the online training parts. The findings indicated a significant improvement in the students’ knowledge and skills. The participants achieved higher score following the tutorial than the baseline, with a statistically significant difference (p < 0.001). There was a significant improvement in the number of detected treatment-related problems. The majority of students were satisfied with the overall training process and stated a high evaluation score out of 10 (mean = 7.93 ± 1.42, median = 8.00).

Conclusion:

The educational intervention achieved a substantial positive impact on decision-making skills of participating students and was considered effective in helping them attain basic skills such as teamwork, peer assessment, communication and critical evaluation. Healthcare providers must work together to ensure accurate medication use during care transitions. Pharmacists, as medication experts, play an important role in the implementation process. Pharmacy educators must prepare pharmacy student to use pharmaceutical care in their future practice.