Impact of a drug-drug interaction intervention on pharmacy and medical students' knowledge and attitudes: a 1-year follow-up

Background: There have been many interventions aimed at improving retention of drug-drug interaction (DDI) knowledge of health care professionals. Much less is known about their retention of such knowledge for extended periods of time after an educational intervention.

Objectives: To evaluate pharmacy and medical students' knowledge retention and attitudes 1 year after participating in an educational session on DDIs.

Methods: This study used a pre-post design with an assessment of DDI knowledge and attitude by pharmacy and medical students before and after the final didactic year of their professional education. The intervention was a 1-hour program.

Results: A total of 74 of 193 students (38%) completed the pre, post, and final questionnaire. The median numbers of correctly identified DDIs before the program were 8 and 7 for pharmacy and medical students, respectively, out of a possible score of 15. One year after, the median identification knowledge scores were 12 and 8, respectively, for pharmacy and medical students. The median difference scores of correctly managed DDIs on this evaluation 1 year after the program were -4 and -8 for pharmacy and medical students, respectively (P<.05).

Conclusion: This study found that the ability to identify important DDIs is poor among both pharmacy and medical students 1 year after being exposed to the educational session.