Impact of Pharmacy Training Software, on pharmacy students’ knowledge in Zabol University of Medical Sciences and Their Opinion about it

Introduction: Community pharmacy training course is one of the most important parts of pharmacy training program. As we faced so many problems presenting this course in Zabol pharmacy school, community pharmacy teaching software was designed to decrease the existing problems. Here we evaluated the input of our designed software on knowledge of pharmacy students of Zabol University of Medical Sciences and their opinion about it. Methods: This is a quasi-experimental study in two consecutive groups of our students (44 students). We used the combination of classic method of lecturing and pharmacy placement in 2006 entry students (22 students as control group ) and lecturing session (same as control group) plus using our software, and then pharmacy placement in 2007 entry students (22 students as experiment group). We gave them a written exam at the end of the course and compared their mean scores. The experiment group also completed a researcher made questionnaire on their viewpoints about the software. Descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and T-test were used for data analysis. Results: The mean score in the experiment group (13.1± 3.89) was significantly higher compared to that of the control (10.75±3.71) group (t=2.054, p=.046).Eighteen students from the study group (81.80%) agreed that the software could increase their quality of learning. Altogether, students in the study group approved using the pharmacy training software. Conclusion: Our study results showed that this software increased the quality of learning and students had positive attitude about the effectiveness of this complementary teaching method. As this software can be used outside the pharmacy environment and does not need internet access, it can be used as a helpful teaching aid in community pharmacy training.