A pilot project to assess community pharmacists’ knowledge and caring behaviors for recurrent headache sufferers after a migraine-focused educational intervention

Abstract

Objectives: (1) Compare pharmacists’ self-assessed knowledge of migraine before and after an educational intervention; (2) Compare pharmacists’ self-reported care behaviors following an educational intervention with a control group of pharmacists; (3) Identify interactions between the educational intervention results and individual independent variables. Design: Quasi-experimental, parallel design. Setting: Twenty community pharmacies in northeastern Oklahoma from March to May 2010. Participants: 49 pharmacists at one of twenty community pharmacies, with active and in-good-standing Oklahoma pharmacy licenses. Intervention: Two-hour educational session on migraine identification and current treatment. Main outcome measures: Compare pharmacists’ self-assessed knowledge of migraine before and after an educational intervention and compare self-reported care behaviors of these same pharmacists with a control group of pharmacists. Results: Pharmacists’ self-assessed knowledge mean scores were significantly higher post-intervention compared to pre-intervention (p<0.0001). Self-assessed knowledge was higher in the intervention group post-questionnaire scores compared to the control group of pharmacists (p=0.004). Intervention group pharmacists were more confident in their ability to maintain knowledge of migraine (p=0.04). No difference was seen regarding difficulty in providing care for a migraineur (p=0.16) or in how the pharmacists perceived employer culture (p=0.79). No significant interactions were found between the educational intervention and demographic variables collected. Conclusion: Attending an educational program on migraine improved pharmacists’ knowledge and confidence when providing care to migraineurs.