Online Experiences of Pharmacy Practices during COVID-19 Pandemic in Pharmacy Program in Jordan

Introduction: The pandemic of COVID-19 caused a great challenge to clinical pharmacy programs. Global and local restrictions imposed by prevention and disease control bodies have made clinical training programs hard to implement on campus and/or in hospitals Aims & Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of a distance-assembled clinical training program for pharmacy students in Jordan during the COVID-19 pandemic Place and Duration of Study: This study was carried out from July to September 2020 at the College of Pharmacy, University of Petra, Amman-Jordan Material & Method: A Cross-sectional study survey that surveyed pharmacy students during the summer course quasi-experimental design using a post-test-only approach. Only pharmacy students during the summer of 2020 were enrolled in this study. Final year, 4th and 5th year.21 fourth and fifth pharmacy students completed the study. Students from other years were excluded. Specific patient data collection sheets were distributed to pharmacy students enrolled in an integrated pharmacy course in the summer semester from July to September 2020. After data collection, students were asked to develop a detailed pharmaceutical care plan. All sheets and care plans were collected from students, and a course evaluation questionnaire was utilized to measure the outcome of this distance learning approach. This approach focused on vital elements of therapeutic supervision involving appropriate drug indication, drug efficiency, drug safety, and inpatient compliance. The main variables tested in this study were students’ demographics, including gender and year. The second questionnaire consisted of student’s valuation of the clinical pharmacy supervisor. The third (questionnaire consisted of student's evaluation of the collection sheets and care plans for their patients Results: The results from the post-training questionnaire showed that the majority of students reported an apparent improvement in knowledge and clinical skills. Qualitative responses by participating students showed positive responses associated with this distance learning approach, suggesting the possible benefit of such approach on long-term clinical pharmacy education. Conclusion: A successful outline of a distanced organized clinical training for pharmacy students has been established during COVID19. Both the patients and the students assigned to them benefited from this clinical pharmacy educational experience.