Student pharmacist counseling performance after hands-on continuous glucose monitoring education: A multi-institutional pragmatic randomized study.

Objective: To assess the impact of wearing a continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) device on student pharmacist counseling ability (primary), knowledge, confidence, and empathy (secondary).
Methods: Students from two institutions were randomized to wear a CGM device (intervention) vs not (control). All received CGM education via lecture and live demonstration. Intervention group students were provided a CGM device. After two weeks, all students completed a standardized patient (SP) encounter regarding CGM prescription counseling. Pre-post CGM-related knowledge, confidence, and empathy were assessed. Analysis of variance was used to compare between-group counseling score difference, and analysis of covariance was used to compare changes in pre-post knowledge, confidence, and empathy scores. Analyses were performed using Stata/BE17.0.
Results: Of 86 students enrolled, 63 consented and completed surveys (32 intervention, 31 control). The intervention group demonstrated higher average SP counseling score vs control (82.4 % vs 77.7 %, p = .046). The intervention group had greater change in confidence vs control from pre to post survey (+ 2.3 vs + 1.7, p = 0.03, range 1-5). No between-group differences were observed in knowledge or empathy.
Conclusion: The opportunity to wear a CGM device resulted in higher performance on CGM counseling and greater rise in CGM-related confidence. This study supports the use of resources to provide hands-on CGM training.
Practice Implications: Hands-on education about new diabetes technology can help students prepare to care for and counsel patients.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Christina Sherrill, Heather Folz reports financial support was provided by National Association of Chain Drug Stores Foundation. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. Conflicts of interest The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
(Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)