Pharmacists and knowledge of asthma: Survey of 120 pharmacists, comparison between 1999 and 2009

Asthma morbidity has changed over the ten last years, we speculated that pharmacist knowledge concerning the treatment of asthma has also changed over years. Aim: To compare pharmacists9 knowledge in asthma treatment in urban and rural areas between 1999 and 2009. Material and methods: 120 pharmacists (60 licensed and 60 assistants) from the Bas-Rhin (North part of Alsace) were randomly selected on two occasions. The 20099s pharmacists were all different from the 19999s ones. 86 of them accepted to answer the same standardized questionnaire in 1999 and in 2009. Pharmacist9s populations in 1999 and in 2009 were identical (age, gender, pharmacy location (urban vs rural), ...) Emergency interventions for an asthma attack were performed by 10.6% of them in 1999 and 8.6% in 2009 (NS). 33% of them advised patients to go back home after intervention in 1999 and 57% in 2009. They gave advice to obtain a better compliance (96% the two years) and explained how to use an inhaler (96% in 1999 and 94% in 2009) in the same proportion. Ten years later, 98% volontarily demonstrated use of different inhalers instead of 64% in 1999 (p=10-4) (MDI, Autohaler, Turbuhaler) 14 and 9% knew how to use an MDI properly, 5 and 4% an Autohaler and 31 and 24% a Turbuhaler in 1999 and 2009, respectively. (I don9t understand this point well). Time spend per prescription was the same in the two years ( Conclusion: During the last 10 years, pharmacists knowledge about asthma has not increased significantly. On the other hand they were more prone to use an inhaler for a demonstration. Training pharmacists about asthma seems still necessary.