Improving Pharmacy Care in the Refugee Population in Tucson through the Creation and Implementation of Informational Pamphlets Translated in their Native Language

Abstract

Background Health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information. It is a vital component to achieving adequate health care. A frequent request from refugees is to increase and improve language services. This study evaluated the effect of healthcare education on refugees, which reflects the importance of language services.

Methods We analyzed the effects of an educational pamphlet and presentation to refugees speaking Arabic, Swahili, and Somali. Fourteen participants attended a one hour presentation on Medicine Safety and the interpretation of prescription labels. Each participant answered a pre-questionnaire before the presentation and a post-questionnaire after. The pre- and post-questionnaire included five questions on understanding prescription labels, two questions on demographics, and two opinion-based questions.

Results Statistical analysis was completed using the two-tailed paired t-test with an a priori p-value of <0.05. The participants were similar in number and gender, but significantly different in age (p=0.02). The total mean score of post-questionnaire was significantly higher (0.64) than pre-questionnaire (0.47) (p=0.03). The mean score for Arabic, Swahili, and Somali pre- and post-questionnaire were 0.56 and 0.84 (p=0.13), 0.44 and 0.44, and 0.40 and 0.65 (p=0.19) respectively. There was no significant difference when comparing individual questions asked on the questionnaires.

Conclusion Participants from all three groups showed improvement in their ability to understand prescription labels after the presentation. However, the mean score of each individual group was not significantly improved potentially due to different baseline, such as educational level.