[Effects of E-learning on Pharmacists' Recognition and Practice in Medication Education for Patients with Hearing Loss].

Pharmacists are required to provide and collect medication information based on patients' health literacy and communication abilities to provide effective pharmaceutical care. Due to a lack of understanding of hearing loss and awareness of the inconvenience that patients with hearing loss face, appropriate actions for effective communication in medication education are not fully implemented. An e-learning system consisting of two courses, a learning course and an evaluation course, has been developed. The learning course explains hearing loss and appropriate actions in medication education and investigates pharmacists' recognition of medication education, while the evaluation course assesses the implementation of necessary actions in medication education and changes in pharmacists' recognition of medication education with patients compared to before the e-learning. From February to September 2022, 41 pharmacists completed the learning course, with 22 advancing to the evaluation course. Prior to learning, they had difficulty in communicating with patients with hearing loss. However, after the learning course, their confidence in medication education improved with a better understanding of hearing loss and practice of appropriate actions. They also felt that pharmacists who were unfamiliar with the system should understand hearing loss and take actions tailored to patients' hearing loss. Further examination may be needed of the effects of the e-learning on patients with hearing loss.

[Analysis of Factors to Hinder Self-directed Learning about Medication Education to Patients with Hearing Loss].

To improve medication education for patients with hearing loss, pharmacists must better understand hearing loss and provide and collect medication information based on patients' health literacy and communication abilities. However, no systematic educational e-learning systems for hearing loss are currently available. Therefore, an e-learning system based on instructional design, microlearning principles, and multimedia teaching materials was developed. The e-learning system used Moodle, an open-source e-learning system, and included two courses: one for self-directed learning by watching videos and answering quizzes, and another for evaluating medication education after learning. A study was conducted on 84 pharmacists and 36 pharmacy students who took the learning course to investigate the factors that hinder their understanding and progress of self-directed learning. Although they fully understood the content by watching videos, students with no experience in medication education required an explanation to understand how to communicate with patients. As the learning course was self-directed and related to communication lectures, all students completed it; however, the completion rate for pharmacists was approximately 50%. The following factors could have slowed pharmacists' e-learning progress: difficulty accessing the learning course through system login and long-duration content, such as answers to free descriptions. This survey found that this e-learning method can be used for self-directed learning about medication education for patients with hearing loss. Further improvement of the e-learning system is necessary so that recognizing the need to understand hearing loss and take appropriate actions for patients with hearing loss in medication education can lead to self-directed learning among pharmacists.

[Comparison in the Recognition about Medication Education between People with Prelingual Hearing Loss and Pharmacists].

Providing medication information according to a patient's health literacy and communication ability is needed for safe and effective healthcare. Communication barriers due to hearing loss prevent pharmacists from providing medication information to patients with hearing loss. A questionnaire about the difficulty in understanding medication information and the feeling of inconvenience during medication education was conducted from September to October 2020 with 84 people with prelingual hearing loss and 346 pharmacists. The 84 hearing loss participants were divided into low- and high-scoring groups based on their understanding of medication use. Pharmacists did not realize that low-scoring group participants did not understand items with homonyms, abstract expressions about medication use and medical terminology. Pharmacists were also unaware that the low-scoring group felt the inconvenience in medication education because of the difficulty to communicate, inform not understanding medication information and consult about medication use with a pharmacist. Prior learning about hearing loss led to higher responses in recognition of the aforementioned issues. However, even pharmacists with prior experience of learning did not fully recognize that speaking out loud is not useful for effective communication and that hearing loss patients need contact methods other than the phone. This indicates the need to learn about hearing loss to improve provision of medication information and effective communication in medication education to people with hearing loss.