Objective: To clarify the relationship between the awareness of pharmacists regarding instructions on the use of inhaled corticosteroids and the instructions conveyed.
Design: Fact-finding-survey using self-administered questionnaires.
Methods: The survey items consisted of age, years of clinical experience, number of prescriptions from asthmatics per month (“number of prescriptions”), items to concern when giving instructions (“items to concern”) time required to give instructions on inhaler usage (“time required”), and the pharmacists’ awareness regarding instructions on the inhaler usage (“awareness items”).  There were six awareness items for which responses were solicited on a four-grade scale.  Respondents were divided into two groups: a “high awareness” group giving responses of “completely agree” (or “completely disagree” for diametrically opposed items) and a “low awareness” group giving other responses.  T test was used to compare the average of age, years of clinical experience, number of prescriptions, concern degree, and time required between 2 groups.
Results: This showed the higher consciousness that “instructions on inhaler usage are important issue relating to the patient’s asthma therapy” was significantly-high degree of concern and time required.  Also, the consciousness that “instructions on inhaler usage are a specialized activity performed by pharmacists” was related to age, years of clinical experience and level of concern degree.  Additionally, this suggested the pharmacists giving negative responses with respect to the notions that “the effect of instructions on inhaler usage is not worth the trouble” and “patients have insufficient desire to master of inhaler usage” had a higher degree of concern.
Conclusions: For significance and importance of instructions on inhaler usage, there was confirmed to be relationship between pharmacists’ awareness and the information conveyed and time spent on the instructions.  This suggested that it was important to improve awareness of instructions on inhaler usage in both the clinical and educational setting.