A Mix-Methodological Assessment Of Community Pharmacists’ Perception Towards Online Health Information In Federal Territory Of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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Date
2018-07
Authors
Ong, See Wan
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
Internet has become a common tool used by both healthcare professionals and
the public to acquire up-to-date health-related information to improve their
knowledge. Most of the studies described the growth of use of Internet around
physicians, but information scarcity is reported around community pharmacists
(CPs). Hence, this research was proposed in order to have better understanding of the
current and future implications of Internet use for health information among
Malaysian CPs. The objectives: (i) to explore CPs’ perceptions on health-related
information obtained from Internet; (ii) to identify the type of professional activities
or online health-related information sought by CPs; and (iii) to investigate the
barriers while retrieving online health-related information. Sequential exploratory
mixed-methodology was adopted in this research, where phase-one was qualitative
study and quantitative in phase-two, targeting CPs practising in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia. Face-to-face interviews were adopted for qualitative study. Purposive and
snowball sampling techniques were used to recruit participants. Upon participants’
agreement, interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and then analysed
thematically. Phase-one consists of 11 participants and four major themes were
identified. They claimed that the online health-related information is useful, easily
accessible, and perceived that Internet is a unique source. Nevertheless, information
should be obtained from established online sources. They expressed the need of
training on information searching and website evaluation, and provision a list of
credentialed websites.
Description
Keywords
Pharmacists’ perception towards online health information , in federal territory of Kuala Lumpur