The evaluation of knowledge levels of pharmacy employees in respect to the health quality standards-hospital drug administration at Dokuz Eylul University Hospital

Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate and study the level and influencing factors of knowledge of pharmacy employees working at Dokuz Eylül University Hospital in respect to the implementations of Health Quality Standards-Hospital (Version-5;Revision 01) kit (guideline) on pharmaceutical management. Method: A cross sectional study is conducted on 54 health employees worked at Dokuz Eylul University Hospital Pharmacy; 32 of them worked from the date of starting to work in the pharmacy to 2017 and the remaning 22 had been working between 2014-2016 and thereafter left their job. Data is collected by means of a questionnaire prepared by the researcher using the Health Quality Standards–Hospital (Version-5; Revision 01) Kit. Distribution indicators such as numbers, percentages, arithmetic means are used along with Mann Whitney U test in the analysis of the data. Results: The number of the female and male employees is equal in the study group and 40.7 % have bachelor's degree holders, 48.1 % aged between 30-39, 40.7 % are pharmacy technicians, 32.1% of them have total work experience varying between 6-10 years and 41.5 % worked for 1 to 5 years in DEU Hospital pharmacy. Healthcare employees gave a positive opinions varying between 80% and 95% for the following 12 criteria on drug safety. On the other hand, opinions on the remaining 4 criteria which are related to the responsibilities of drug administration (standards for rational drug use), hospital working process (pharmacological knowledge), drug submissions (electronic submission) and traceability of drug administration processes (drug error reporting) provided less positive feedback ratio compared with other eight criteria (from 44.5% to 65%). Therefore, based on these findings, it can be said that these criteria are problematic, inefficient and require improvement. There is no statistically significant difference between the average score of knowledge level about the pharmacy workflow in relation to SKS-Hospital, in terms of participants' age, gender, occupation and total working experience (p>0.05). Expectedly, the average score for all the statements(criteria) replied of those who have higher level of education (n=23) and longer working experience in DEU hospital pharmacy (n=16) are significantly high (p=0.04). An intra group comparison is made for the first group (the ones who worked until 2017) in terms of average score and all other variables. When examined years of work experience in the pharmacy, the average score of the ones who worked for 6 years or more (n=16) is significantly higher than those who worked for 5 years or less. In the second group, when average scores are compared in terms of gender, female employees' average score (n=10) is significantly higher than male employees' (n=12). In the same group, average score of the ones who have a bachelor's degree or higher education (n=10) is significantly higher than those who have an associate's degree or less education (n=12) (p=0.03). Conclusion: Pharmacy employees have more knowledge on drug safety during pharmacy management practices in the pharmaceutical management process. On the other hand, it is seen that they are less informed about standards of these four criteria (rational drug use, pharmacological knowledge, electronic submission and drug error reporting). Thus, it is determined that healthcare workers should be given organized training on those criteria. It is extremely important to plan initiatives dealing with these problematic issues.