Understanding the Knowledge Gap and Assessing Comfort Level among Healthcare Professionals Who Provide Inhaler Education.

Understanding the Knowledge Gap and Assessing Comfort Level among Healthcare Professionals Who Provide Inhaler Education. COPD. 2020 Apr 01;:1-8 Authors: Karle E, Patel TP, Zweig J, Krvavac A Abstract Inhaled medications play a pivotal role in the management of COPD and asthma. Provider knowledge and ability to teach various devices is paramount as poor inhaler technique directly correlates with worse disease control. The goal of our survey was to assess the knowledge and comfort level with various inhaled devices among providers involved in patient inhaler education. We constructed a 20-question survey consisting of a five-question Likert scale-based comfort assessment and a 15-question multiple-choice inhaler knowledge test that was distributed both internally and nationwide. Groups surveyed included internal medicine residents, family medicine residents, pulmonary fellows, respiratory therapists, nursing staff, and pharmacists. A total of 557 providers responded to the survey. The overall correct response rate among all respondents was only 47%. There was no significant difference between correct response rates among prescribers (internal medicine residents, family medicine residents, and pulmonary fellows) and non-prescribers (respiratory therapists, nursing staff, and pharmacists), 47% and 47%, respectively (p = 0.6919). However, respiratory therapists had the overall highest correct response rate of 85%. Over 72% of respond...
Source: COPD: Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease - Category: Respiratory Medicine Tags: COPD Source Type: research