Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of a national approach to prescribing education on health professional students’ prescribing and therapeutics knowledge, across multiple disciplines. Methods: In a university examination setting, 83 medical, 40 pharmacy and 13 nurse practitioner students from three different universities completed a set of multiple choice questions (MCQs) before and after completing an online module from the National Prescribing Curriculum (NPC). To minimise overestimation of knowledge, students had to indicate the level of certainty for each answer on a three-point scale. MCQs were scored using a validated certaintybased marking scheme resulting in a composite score (maximum 30 and minimum -60). Students were asked to rate their perception of usefulness of the module. Results: At the pre-module phase, there were no significant differences in the composite MCQ scores between the medical (9.0±10.3), pharmacy (10.2±10.6) and nurse practitioner (8.0±10.7) students. The scores improved significantly for all groups at the post-module phase (p<0.01 for all groups) by similar extents (post-module results: medical, 14.5±9.6; pharmacy, 14.4±9.9; nurse practitioner, 12.1±9.6). 39.4% of the MCQs answered incorrectly with high level of certainty at the pre-module phase were still answered incorrectly with high level of certainty at the post-module phase. Almost all students (with no significant difference between the groups) found the NPC modules, post-module MCQs and feedback useful as a learning tool. Conclusions: A national online approach to prescribing education can improve therapeutics knowledge of students from multiple disciplines of health care and contribute towards streamlining interdisciplinary learning in medication management.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	prescribing, therapeutics, national prescribing curriculum, medical, pharmacy, nurse practitioner
Research Division:	Medical and Health Sciences
Research Group:	Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Research Field:	Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
Objective Division:	Health
Objective Group:	Health and Support Services
Objective Field:	Health Policy Evaluation
UTAS Author:	Peterson, G (Professor Gregory Peterson)
UTAS Author:	Westbury, J (Dr Juanita Breen)
ID Code:	80510
Year Published:	2013 (online first 2012)
Web of Science® Times Cited:	7
Deposited By:	Pharmacy
Deposited On:	2012-11-01
Last Modified:	2017-11-02
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