Competence in metered dose inhaler technique among dispensers in Mekelle

Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology

Hussen D Ali¹  Gubena S Worku²  Asfaw A Alemayehu¹  W/aregay H Gebrehiwot³ 

[1] Department of Pharmacy, College of Health Sciences, Mekelle University, Mekelle, Ethiopia

[2] Pharmacy unit, Minister of Defence Armed Force Referral Hospital, Health main directorate, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

[3] Department of Midwifery, College of Health Sciences, Mekelle University, Mekelle, Ethiopia

关键词: Inhalers;    Dispensers;    Asthma;    MDI;   

Others  :  791837
DOI  :  10.1186/1710-1492-10-18

 received in 2014-01-20, accepted in 2014-03-21,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Inhaled medications are the cornerstone of asthma therapy. Metered dose inhaler technique is a widely used technique to administer medications like corticosteroids. Meanwhile, the health professionals and patients knowledge and practice towards this metered dose inhaler is quite deficient but arguably understood by policy makers or education expertise.

Objective

This study tried to assess the pharmacists and druggists competency on MDI who are the professionals at the front line to demonstrate and teach the technique for patients.

Method

A cross sectional study was conducted among registered pharmacists and druggists from different public and private pharmacies and drug stores in Mekelle Town, Ethiopia from March to June, 2013. Evaluation tool was adapted from the National Asthma Education and Prevention Programmes of America (NAEPP) step criteria for the administration of a metered dose inhaler to score the knowledge/proficiency of use of MDIs by the subjects using two evaluators.

Result

The mean score given by evaluators was 4.34 and 4.28 by evaluator I and II respectively. Of the 106 professionals took part in this research, based on the competency on essential steps for optimum therapeutic value of MDI, only 2 (1.9%) and 1 (0.9%) study participants had adequate competency in metered dose inhaler according to evaluator I and evaluator II respectively. The rest, irrespective of their age, sex, educational status and experience, did not achieve adequate score on MDI technique. Of the essential steps, only 25 (23.6%) and 16 (15.1%) participants breathed in and actuating the canister together according to evaluators I and II respectively.

Conclusion

Very poor MDI technique was very common in this sample of healthcare providers. Despite involvement of all participants in patient counselling on inhalers, none of them were able to perform all steps correctly, which shows that patient may not have adequate instruction.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Ali et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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