Abstract:

The principal aim of the School of Pharmacy from the University of Castilla-La Mancha is to train the next generations of pharmacists in all aspects about drugs and medicines, according to European Directives relating to the pharmaceutical profession. However, the wider scope of situations, which must be confronted for these professionals in community pharmacy (CP), requires supplementary training in order to enhance and complete their knowledge in specific fields. Keeping this idea in mind, we propose a theoretical and practical workshop in order to improve the students` knowledge about the special management of Parkinson Disease (PD) patients from the CP.

The second workshop was organized in three theoreticals and one practical session following the methodology described in the first edition [1]. In the theoretical session, the students acquired specific knowledge of the disease, tackling subjects like physiopathology, pharmacology, speech therapy, physiotherapy, psychology, occupational therapy, nutrition and pharmaceutical care. Besides, the first day the participants received some information of two clinical cases of PD that had to be resolved in the last session performing a role-playing. In the practical session, students faced virtual situations with four actual patients. For this purpose, patients coming from the Association of Relatives and PD Patients of Albacete have participated in the Workshop. In order to carry out the workshop as real as possible, we used an innovative classroom, which mimics a CP (Simulated Pharmacy).

The professionals from different fields, provided the theoretical sessions. In addition, they made a specific checklist which integrate knowledge about the disease, communication abilities and treatment. We used this checklist in the role-playing in order to assess the knowledge acquired by students in the theoretical session. Twenty items have been tested in the checklist, for instance: “the student checks that the patient knows the disease that he has”, “the student reports to the patient about the adverse effects and drug interactions” or “the student expresses himself clearly”.

The results showed that the students expressed themselves with empathy, catching the interest, and with the proper use of the non-verbal communication. However, they did not apply previous acquired knowledge or specific information about adverse reactions and the interactions of drugs.

As a conclusion, the workshop could be a powerful tool in order to help to our students to reach a better understanding of the PD and the management of this disease from the CP. The participations of different professionals in the theoretical session improve students' knowledge about other health approaches. The Simulated Pharmacy was a useful learning tool for preparing our students to deal with real situations. Besides, as a significant conclusion, it is important to note the high level of humanization and empathy that the participants developed for the patients, which was reflected in the satisfaction and personal opinion survey.

References:
[1] Proceedings of INTED2018. March 2018, Valencia, Spain. ISBN: 978-84-697-9480-7.

Financial support and/or acknowledgments:
We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the Association of Relatives and PD Patients of Albacete, health professionals and students who participated in the workshop.

Keywords:

Parkinson disease, community pharmacy, patients' experiences, pharmaceutical care.