Investigating the effectiveness of the role-playing method in the professional training of pharmacy technicians in Mashhad

Abstract

Background: Pharmacological knowledge is of great importance in the education of pharmacy technicians, and its proper acquisition plays an important role in providing pharmaceutical care in their professional work because an important part of the technicians' performance is based on their pharmaceutical knowledge.Method: In this intervention study, which was implemented using the One-Group Pretest-Posttest Design method, 80 pharmacy technicians from Mashhad were recruited via SMS to participate in a free pharmacology skills training course through convenient sampling based on the entry criteria. After taking the pretest, they participated in a 60-hour role-playing course and then took the posttest. The pretest and posttest scores were analyzed according to the target variables using SPSS version 16 software.Results: Due to the data's non-normal distribution, nonparametric tests (Wilcoxon) were used. The mean pre-test score was 62.5 ± 1.68, and the mean post-test score of the participants was 83.35 ± 5.27, which was statistically significant (z=-7.000, p=0.0001). Also, the difference between the mean pre-test and post-test was statistically significant in terms of gender, age, work experience, and educational level.Conclusion: The role-playing method can be used as an effective and appropriate method for training pharmacy technicians.

Keywords

• role-playing
• pharmacy technicians
• professional education