Alanazi Majed Falah, Shahein Majed Ibrahim, Alsharif Hamad Mohammed, Alotaibi Saif Mohammed, Alanazi Abdulsalam Owaidh, Alanazi Ahmed Obaidallah, Alharbe Umar Abdolah, Almfalh Hanad S S, Amirthalingam Palanisamy, Hamdan Ahmed Mohsen, Veeramani Vinoth Prabhu, Mohamed Shahul Hameed Pakkir, Ali Mostafa A Sayed
Pharm.D student, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Tabuk, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
Director of Pharmaceutical Care Department, King Fahd Multispecialty Hospital, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
Pharm Pract (Granada). 2022 Oct-Dec;20(4):2744. doi: 10.18549/PharmPract.2022.4.2744. Epub 2022 Nov 11.
Automated drug dispensing system (ADDs) is an emerging technology positively impacts drug dispensing efficiency by minimizing medication errors. However, the pharmacist perception of the impact of ADDs on patient safety is not well-established. This cross-sectional observational study aimed to evaluate the dispensing practice and pharmacist perception of ADDs towards patient safety through a validated questionnaire.
A self-designed questionnaire was validated and the pharmacist perception of dispensing practice was compared between two hospitals adopting ADDs and traditional drug dispensing system (TDDs).
The developed questionnaire had an excellent internal consistency (both Cronbach's α and McDonald's ω coefficients were >0.9). Factor analysis retained three significant factors (subscales) that explained pharmacist perception of dispensing system, dispensing practice, and patient counseling (p<0.001 for each factor). The average number of prescriptions dispensed per day, drugs contained in each prescription, average time for labeling each prescription and inventory management were significantly varied between ADDs and TDDs (p=0.027, 0.013 0.044 and 0.004, respectively). The perception of pharmacists using ADDs on three domains were higher than the TDDs. The pharmacists in ADDs agreed that they had enough time to review the medications before dispensing than TDDs and this difference was found to be statistically significant (p=0.028).
ADDs was highly effective in improving dispensing practice and medication review; however, the pharmacists need to emphasize the importance of ADDs to translate the pharmacists' freed-time towards patient care.
自动发药系统（ADDs）是一项新兴技术，通过最大限度地减少用药错误对发药效率产生积极影响。然而，药剂师对ADDs对患者安全影响的看法尚未明确确立。这项横断面观察性研究旨在通过一份经过验证的问卷来评估发药实践以及药剂师对ADDs对患者安全的看法。
一份自行设计的问卷经过验证，并比较了采用ADDs的两家医院和传统发药系统（TDDs）的药剂师对发药实践的看法。
所开发的问卷具有出色的内部一致性（Cronbach's α系数和McDonald's ω系数均>0.9）。因子分析保留了三个重要因子（子量表），解释了药剂师对发药系统、发药实践和患者咨询的看法（每个因子p<0.001）。ADDs和TDDs之间每天发放的处方平均数量、每张处方所含药物、为每张处方贴标签的平均时间以及库存管理存在显著差异（分别为p=0.027、0.013、0.044和0.004）。使用ADDs的药剂师在三个领域的看法高于TDDs。ADDs的药剂师一致认为，他们在发药前有足够的时间审查药物，而TDDs则不然，且发现这种差异具有统计学意义（p=0.028）。
ADDs在改善发药实践和药物审查方面非常有效；然而，药剂师需要强调ADDs的重要性，以便将药剂师节省的时间转化为对患者的护理。
