Evaluation of a pharmacy emergency response conference workshop

Background: The importance of pharmacists' involvement in disasters is becoming increasingly recognised in the literature. The aim of this project was to determine the effectiveness of a disaster workshop in improving pharmacy staff’s perceived capabilities to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters.    Methods: A disaster workshop was provided at a pharmacy conference. The workshop incorporated an evolving emergency scenario in which participants worked through activities pertaining to the prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery cycles. The attendees were invited to complete a previously validated pre-post survey assessing their perceptions of their skills and capabilities in the components of disaster management. Results: The pre-post survey was completed by 31 attendees.  After the workshop, participants' perceptions of their ability to prevent, respond to, and recover from a disaster significantly improved (p=0.004, 0.013, and 0.013, respectively).     Conclusion: This study demonstrated that a conference disaster workshop can improve the understanding and perceived disaster capabilities of health-system pharmacy personnel.