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Introduction and Evaluation of Clinical Reasoning Education for Pharmacists

To allocate limited medical resources efficiently in the aging society, promotion of self-medication is an urgent matter. To solve this problem, appropriate recommendations for consultation by pharmacists are necessary. The pharmacist should be able to determine which patients require consultation. However, pharmacist education in clinical reasoning is insufficient and its efficacy has not been clarified. Therefore, we developed an educational program for improving pharmacist clinical reasoning skills, such as history-taking and physical assessment. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of the educational program. The subjects were pharmacists working for a pharmacy chain. A questionnaire was distributed to the participants before and after the educational program. The questionnaire asked about learning achievement (12 questions) and recommendation for consultation in the practice (9 questions). Questions about learning achievement consisted of clinical reasoning and physical assessment skills. Questions about recommendation for consultation consisted of frequency of the recommendation and impression about the recommendation. As a result, 43 pharmacists participated, and there were 36 respondents (84%). The number of pharmacists who were unsure whether they should recommend consultation decreased significantly after the program (25 pharmacists [69%] before vs. 13 pharmacists [36%] after, P = 0.002). Pharmacists gained confidence in conducting clinical reasoning by participating in this educational program. In addition, it is suggested that the pharmacist’s desire to convey the results of the work to the customer may increase.