PREPARATION AND VALIDATION OF AN INSTRUMENT FOR THE EVALUATION OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS IN PHARMACEUTICAL ORIENTATION

Abstract

Introduction: The pharmacist rescued patient care, being necessary to develop the skills to communicate well. Poor communication may be the main factor resulting from non-adherence to drug treatment, resulting in severe clinical conditions. In health care, the pharmaceutical and patient relationships are essential and must be effective, from the reception, needs verification, pharmaceutical anamnesis, realization and information record, considering life context and its integrality. However, there are still few publications about effective communication between the pharmacist and the patient. Objectives: Elaborate an instrument for evaluation of communication competencies in pharmaceutical orientation and to evaluate how this professional is reaching health services. This was approved by CAAE 83290518.2.0000.5569. Methodology: A survey was carried out in the literature in databases, from 1997 to 2017 on the topic, followed by the elaboration of the evaluation instrument that addressed the communicational competences. For validation of content, the instrument was evaluated by a panel of experts: 01 scientific method; 01 psychometric scales; 01 linguistics and 02 the subject covered. The Semantic Validation / FACE, newly graduated pharmacists (up to 2 years) participated, who work providing pharma-ceutical orientation to the patients. For Content and Semantic Validation, the change criterion used was 80% consensus. To finalize this step, the instrument for obtaining the final consensual version was returned to the expert panel. Results: The elaboration of the instrument contemplated the dimensions of knowledge, skills and communicational attitudes in the pharmaceutical orientation. The 24 questions will be answered through Likert model’s agreement scale, with 05 op-tion levels (1) Strongly disagree up to (5) I fully agree. The instrument went through content validation with five specialists, who consented to maintain the dimension of knowledge and to unite the dimensions of skills and attitudes. As it is a self-applied instrument, it has been suggested to make the statements clearer with examples. In the semantic / FACE validation, the panel instrument version was discussed by nine pharmacists from focal group. There were only words’ synonyms adjustments and more examples’ suggestions. Conclusion: The instrument “Scale for Evaluation of Communication Skills in Pharmaceutical Care” is prepared and validated. The experimental phase will apply the instrument to 240 pharmacists, graduated up to 2 years. For the analysis of the internal consistency of the answers, Conbach’s Alpha test will be used and its stability verified by testing and retesting. The results can be used to plan interventions for improvements in academic training of future pharmacists and to contribute to continuing education.