Training student pharmacists to facilitate human immunodeficiency virus point-of-care testing.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The advent of HIV point-of-care testing (POCT) has increased ease of access to HIV testing in the outpatient setting. As community pharmacy continues to expand, it is crucial that student pharmacists are exposed to POCT in the classroom so they are prepared for more intensive training as a pharmacist as they could be providing POCT in future practice. Our objective was to train student pharmacists to perform HIV POCT and educate patients on results and implications of testing. Educational activity and setting: Following a didactic HIV lecture, second-year student pharmacists learned to utilize the OraQuick ADVANCE Rapid HIV-½ Antibody Test in a one-hour workshop. Participants were then assessed using a 4-point Likert type scale during an individual, 10-min skills lab on their ability to provide POCT using sample kits and interpret simulated results. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. FINDINGS: Forty-one students participated. Students showed competency when performing HIV POCT, as 92.7% of students were able to describe the test, and 97.6% of students were able to interpret the results correctly. Students scored a mean of 46.2 points overall (maximum of 50). SUMMARY: Results suggest training student pharmacists to perform HIV POCT may better prepare them to administer the test and counsel patients on results in an outpatient setting. Future studies should examine the differences in the ability to perform POCT between pharmacists who received training as students and those who did not.

Improvement of student confidence and competence through a self-care skills multi-course integration.

INTRODUCTION: Our goal was to evaluate the impact of integrating self-care concepts in class, a pharmacy practice laboratory, and an introductory pharmacy practice experience on student confidence and competence in self-care counseling. METHODS: Two cohorts of first-year professional pharmacy students were taught self-care topics using team-based learning (TBL) pedagogy. Students then applied their knowledge in two different settings: a patient-counseling simulation in a pharmacy practice laboratory and a real patient encounter at a pharmacy practice site. Students were evaluated on their performance at both settings using a validated rubric as well as on their self-reported confidence before and after the classroom engagement and after the counseling practice. Wilcoxon signed-rank and Friedman tests were used to examine pre-post changes and changes across all three assessments. RESULTS: Reported student confidence levels rose after classroom learning and again after the real patient encounter. Student improvement was mirrored in rubric scores from the pharmacy practice laboratory simulation as well as from the pharmacy practice site encounter. CONCLUSIONS: This research showed that integration of self-care topics across three different settings improved student confidence and competence in self-care counseling, demonstrating the value of providing multiple opportunities for students to apply knowledge and practice skills. Further research is needed to apply this longitudinal structure of learning to other classes in the pharmacy curriculum.

Development and validation of the self-care counseling rubric (SCCR) to assess student self-care counseling skills.

INTRODUCTION: To describe the development and validation of the self-care counseling rubric (SCCR) to assess student self-care counseling skills. METHODS: Over two years of implementation, a comprehensive rubric was developed and revised for faculty to use. Students were assessed using the rubric in weekly, simulated patient encounters on self-care topics already taught in didactic material. The rubric underwent analysis for validation. Simulated encounters were recorded to assess inter-rater reliability. RESULTS: The internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) of the original SCCR and revised SCCR were 0.81 and 0.85, respectively. The mean intraclass correlation of the original SCCR and revised SCCR was 0.27 and 0.66, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The developed instrument demonstrated good reliability in assessing student self-care counseling performance. The revised SCCR can be an efficient and effective approach to track student competence in self-care counseling.