RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Electronic prescribing systems (e-prescription) for medications have many benefits, including patient safety, increase in patient satisfaction, efficiency of pharmacy work, and quality of patient care. However, few studies have been conducted to evaluate the national e-prescription system "Wasfaty" service in Saudi Arabia, which was recently adopted. OBJECTIVE: The aims of this study were to explore the benefits observed through the use of the system and most frequent challenges experienced by community pharmacists in the Qassim region of Saudi Arabia. METHODS: This study was conducted using a descriptive survey on a web-based platform. The target population of the study included community pharmacists in the Qassim region of Saudi Arabia who worked in pharmacy chains utilizing the e-prescription service between September 2022 and November 2022. Descriptive statistics along with multiple ordinal regression were used for data analysis. RESULTS: The study population consisted of 124 pharmacists, of which 62.9% (78/124) were males and 37.1% (46/124) were females. Most of the participants had a positive perception of the e-prescription system with regard to medication safety, with 68.6% (85/124) indicating that e-prescriptions reduce the risk of dispensing errors. However, 81.5% (101/124) did not agree that the e-prescription system resulted in a reduction in workload, and 70.2% (87/124) disagreed that the service increased patient satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study indicated that the national e-prescription system has many benefits to healthcare employees and improves their work, particularly for patient safety, reducing medication errors, and improving the management of patient medications. The participants believe that there is a need to improve communication with prescribers, showing concern about the unavailability of some medications; thus, it is important for policymakers to encourage other pharmacy chains and suppliers to join the service to increase patient access to medications.
RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Current evidence still emerging regarding the risk of cardiovascular (CV) sequel associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection, and considerable replicated studies are needed to ensure safe return-to-play. Therefore, we aimed in this systematic review to measure the prevalence of CV complications suffered by COVID-19 athletic patients, explore the outcomes, optimal approaches to diagnoses, and safe return-to-play considerations. METHODS: A systematic search on post COVID-19 infection quantitative studies among athletes was conducted following MeSH terms in Medline, Cochrane Library, Ovid, Embase and Scopus (through 15 January 2022). We included peer-reviewed studies reported athletes' CV complications and the outcomes post COVID-19 infection. Editorials, letters, commentaries, and clinical guidelines, as well as duplicate studies were excluded. Studies involving non-athletic patients were also excluded. Quality assessment was performed using Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. RESULTS: We included 15 eligible articles with a total of 6229 athletes, of whom 1023 were elite or professional athletes. The prevalence of myocarditis ranged between 0.4% and 15.4%, pericarditis 0.06% and 2.2%, and pericardial effusion between 0.27% and 58%. Five studies reported elevated troponin levels (0.9-6.9%). CONCLUSIONS: This study provides a low prevalence of CV complications secondary to COVID-19 infection in short-term follow-up. Early recognition and continuous assessment of cardiac abnormality in competitive athletes are imperative to prevent cardiac complications. Establishing a stepwise evaluation approach is critical with an emphasis on imaging techniques for proper diagnosis and risk assessment for a safe return to play.
