© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:sagepub.com/journals-permissionsDOI: 10.1177/17151635231153382
In a recent issue of CPJ, we described the implementation of a workshop series designed to help people gain knowledge about their medications and confidence in talking about these with their health care providers.1 The materials and introductory webinars are available on our website for health care providers who wish to host the workshops locally: https://deprescribing.org/talking-about-medications-workshop-materials/.
Since making these materials publicly available, we have had many requests to provide an evaluation tool. The purpose of our letter is to share our experience with pre-and postsurveys so that others may use and adapt them to help evaluate workshop outcomes.
In 2019, as we developed the workshop content, we conducted a literature review to understand how others were assessing acquisition of medication knowledge, attitudes toward medication management and deprescribing, medication literacy and self-efficacy in medication management, as well as shared decision-making around medications. We ultimately decided to focus the evaluation on capturing information about the usefulness of the workshops, challenges encountered and suggestions for improvement (through open-ended questions), as well as measurement of knowledge acquisition (true/false questions), certainty in undertaking medication management tasks (Likert scale) and intention and certainty in applying workshop learnings to manage medications and engage in shared decision-making (Likert scale). Our goal was to understand if the workshops were meeting participant needs and having the desired impact to guide future program decision-making. After prioritizing questions and deciding on rating scales, we sought feedback on a draft version from a pilot group of participants in 2021 and had it reviewed by 4 members of Family Councils Ontario for sensibility and face validity to produce a testable version.
Between January and July 2022, the surveys were administered online to 41 workshop participants, 17 of whom completed both pre- and post-surveys (10 older adults/caregivers and 7 health care workers). Results suggested that participants became more certain about performing medication management tasks following workshop participation (Appendix 1, available in the supplemental materials to this article). They also demonstrated a greater agreement with statements about intention and certainty in using workshop knowledge and skills following participation. These questions are therefore retained in the final survey version (Appendix 2). Most participants expressed that the content was informative and the workshops easily accessible. True/false questions related to medication management knowledge were typically answered correctly at the outset, with little change following the workshops. This was inconsistent with facilitator feedback and written text responses suggesting learning had occurred (and therefore that our questions were likely not measuring knowledge change) and so these questions were removed from the final version. Responses to questions related to perceived challenges working with doctors were similar postworkshop and therefore these questions were also deleted.
We hope that this pre/post survey will be used and/or adapted to understand the effectiveness of the “Talking about Medications†workshops. If anyone wishes to conduct psychometric testing with the surveys as they implement the workshops, please cite this letter.
—Barbara FarrellLisa McCarthyIda FamiyehJames ConklinLisa CranleyLalitha Raman-Wilms
On behalf of the deprescribing.org team, we acknowledge the input of Leah Clement, Angel Deng, Dan Dilliott, Emily Galley, Pam Howell, Tammie Quast, Amy Randhawa, Lisa Richardson, Carmelina Santamaria and Sameera Toenjes.
