Impact of clinical pharmacist's educational intervention tools in enhancing public awareness and perception of antibiotic use: A randomized control trial

Introduction: In most developing countries, antimicrobial resistance is a public threat, and insufficient knowledge of antibiotics among the public adds to it. This study aimed to determine the efficacy of the clinical pharmacist's pamphlets and video-based educational tools to address the public's knowledge, attitude, and practice gaps on antibiotic use. Methods: This was a pre-and post-intervention cohort study of the adult population in South India who can read and understand Tamil or English. The study participants were designated into two groups-usual care group (pamphlet-based) and interventional group (video-based), with a pre-intervention assessment using a self-administered questionnaire, followed by an educational intervention by a clinical pharmacist, and finally, a post-intervention assessment after three months. Result: Of the162 respondents, the majority were female (58%), in the age group of 26-35 (30%), with inter-mediate education (43%) from a middle-income family. The mean score calculated for each domain among the two groups: knowledge score (Pamphlet based-Pre: 2.26 +/- 1.13; post: 3.23 +/- 1.02), (Video based-Pre: 2.22 +/- 1.45; post: 3.95 +/- 0.89), Attitude score (Pamphlet based-Pre: 2.53 +/- 1.96; post: 3.23 +/- 0.9), (Video based-Pre: 2.39 +/- 1.81; post: 4.21 +/- 1.35), Practice score (Pamphlet based-Pre: 2.19 +/- 1.02; post: 4.46 +/- 1.81). A sig-nificant improvement was observed in all domains of the video-based counselling group compared to the pamphlet-based (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Clinical pharmacists can effectively help in combating growing catastrophic AMR. Newer technol-ogies need to be deployed in healthcare to educate the unreached. This study gives an insight into the technology-supported educational tool to provide awareness to the public effectively.