(132) Do Drug Competency Assessments Work?

Objective : To evaluate the effectiveness of a novel drug competency assessment strategy in third professional year pharmacy students.

Methods: A three-phase drug competency assessment was conducted in spring 2022 based on an institutionally endorsed list of top medications across 9 identified therapeutic domains (ex. cardiology). Students completed a total of 13 assessments including nine low-stakes quizzes, three formative tests, and a final summative comprehensive exam. Multiple choice and case-based questions asked students to recall pertinent medication information including the commonly used brand/generic names, therapeutic class/common uses, common side effects, and select warnings/contraindications. Correlation and sensitivity analysis comparing results between the phased competency design (spring 2022) and the previous year’s design (spring 2021) that included only one summative comprehensive competency (i.e. no additional assessments) was conducted.

Results: The 2022 cohort had a mean score of 80.9% on the final competency exam, which was one percent lower than the 2021 cohort who only completed a summative exam. A sensitivity analysis was conducted that removed students who failed the institutional competency threshold ( < 73%) from the final competency exam and no significant difference was found between the two cohorts (p=0.97). Having one practice drug competency exam was moderately correlated with final competency exam performance in the 2021 cohort and the correlation was statistically significant (r = 0.62, p< 0.001). Number of attempts on low stakes assessments had a low correlation with the final competency exam score in the 2022 cohort (r = 0.24).

Conclusions: The results of this study suggest limitations to the use of a layered drug competency assessment design. Additional research is needed to identify the optimal assessment design to ensure student pharmacists achieve advanced-practice pharmacy experience drug knowledge readiness.