THE ROLE OF PHARMACIST IN PROMOTING RATIONAL DRUG USE: THE CASE OF JORDAN

The purpose of the study was to identify the current situations of some causes and problems concerning to the rational use of drugs in Jordan & to identify the community pharmacists' roles and perceptions towards the role in promoting rational drug use in Jordan. In addition. this study aims to investigate the rational medications use in Jordan since this investigation has not taken a place before.
To obtain information regarding the common problems and causes for irrational drug use in Jordan, a questionnaire was designed by the authors. The sample size (N) was 50, which was randomly selected to be representative of Jordan community pharmacists. The Field workers were briefed on the details of the project. The questionnaire consisted of 7 pre-formulated questions and was piloted in a small sample of the community pharmacists (i.e., 5% of the target sample size; n=50); these data were not included in the analysis. The validity of questionnaire was assessed by pharmacy experts and there was no modification Pharmacists' responses (data) were coded and entered into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17 software. and then the results are shown as figures in Microsoft Excel 2007. The aim of this rating will be to test the frequency of these RDU problems and causes as perceived by the Jordanian pharmacists.
The major findings of the common problem in Jordan were that drug prescriptions used the trade name rather than the generic name of the drugs and there was wide spread misuse of antibiotics, antidiarrhoeal medicines and Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
From this study on the community pharmacists in Jordan it can be emphasized that appropriate training programs should be developed and implemented for the pharmacists to improve using of drugs. Appropriate programs should be also developed and implemented for teaching the general public about the rational use of drugs. The generic names of drugs rather than the trade names Should be used in order to reduce drug costs & community pharmacist should review prescriptions for drugs such as antibiotics, NSAIDS, and antidiarrhoeals and should both ask relevant review questions as well as explaining to the patient reasons for rational drug taking to try to aid compliance.