Objective: Drug information literacy is necessary for pharmacists.  This study investigated the effect of practical training on the drug information literacy of pharmacy students.
Methods: We conducted practical training in the drug information room of hospital pharmacy.  Then we asked the students two questions before and after the training.  We scored the drug information responses of students using four-point rating scales based on objective criteria.  We compared the scores obtained before and after training.  In addition, we researched the realization of several secondary and tertiary sources using a visual analog scale (VAS).  We then compared VAS findings before and after the training.
Results: The score for drug information responses was significantly improved.  For sources other than MEDLINE (Pub Med), the VAS score also improved.  The students were aware of the information on package inserts before training.  There was significant improvement in awareness of books about pregnancy and lactation (e.g. Drugs in Pregnancy and Lactation) after training.  However, there were significant individual differences in awareness of MEDLINE, Up To Date, and the Cochrane Library.
Conclusion: This practical training experience improved the drug information literacy of pharmacy students.  Before training, there were significant deficiencies in the process of literature search.  Therefore, this training was effective for advancement in drug information literacy of pharmacy students.

Objective: We aimed to integrate drug information (DI) documents universally necessary in most hospitals in Japan and share the DI documents nationwide.  For this purpose, we planned to collect details (e.g., types of document, contents, sources of information used for preparing documents) regarding the DI documents prepared by the DI service section of each hospital.
Methods: (1) Preliminary research: We searched Ichushi-Web (from January 1977 to December 2015) for cases in which DI documents were prepared by the DI service section of each hospital.  (2) Questionnaire survey: We conducted the survey in DI section of 300 hospitals in Japan that were selected randomly.  We asked the types of DI documents they have, sources of information used for preparing documents, and time needed for preparing documents.
Results: (1) Forty titles, including those related to preoperative medication management, simple suspension methods of tablets, and list of dosing with renal impairment, were found.  (2) In total, 148 hospitals (49.3%) responded to the survey.  The main contents were as follows: preoperative medication management (130), the influence of a tube and a filter give to stability of injection medicine (67), list of high-risk medicines (54), suspension or porphyrization information on tablets (37), and others.  The source of information used for preparing these documents was common in several hospitals.
Conclusion: It was confirmed that similar DI documents are prepared by several DI sections of hospitals and some sources of drug information are common.