Knowledge and Awareness Regarding Corticosteroids and Effectiveness of a Novel Steroid Educational Module among People Visiting General OPD of a Tertiary Care Hospital

Introduction: In India, knowledge and awareness regarding prescription drugs is lacking. Of these, corticosteroids are one of the most widely used drugs and also one with an array of side effects. Therefore, discretionary use of these prevalent drugs must be emphasized to the general public. Thus, the present study was undertaken to determine knowledge and awareness regarding corticosteroids among people visiting the General OPD and evaluate the effectiveness of a novel steroid educational module. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in a total of 328 people visiting the General OPD after Ethics permission. After taking informed consent, a pre-validated questionnaire (CVR =0.62-1, CVI=0.9) was administered. 96 participants having low baseline knowledge regarding steroids from enrolled 328 participants were administered the module. Paired-t test was used for pre and post-interventional analysis. Results: Out of 328 participants, only 17.1% (56/328) knew about steroids. Of those, only 14% (8/56) said that their source of information was doctor, 51.78% (29/56) didn’t know any therapeutic use of steroids, and 71.5% (40/56) didn’t know any side effects. The pretest score was 0/11 for all 96 participants, the post-test score was an average of 5.16. The p value obtained was statistically significant (0.0001). Knowledge regarding uses, side effects and formulations of steroids increased from 0 to 77.1%, 58.3% and 76% respectively. Conclusion: The knowledge and awareness of participants regarding steroids was negligent. In our study, Informative educational module used was observed to be very effective.