Unlocking Urban India's Awareness of Oral Anticoagulation: Implications for Healthcare Education

INTRODUCTION: Treatment outcomes for patients with Arrhythmias, DVT, Prosthetic valve, Blood thinning and Cardiac issue/chest pain problems can be impacted by knowledge about oral anticoagulant therapy.
Aims:
Primary aim is to assess the knowledge of anticoagulation therapy among patients using oral anticoagulants and secondary objective is to identify factors influencing the level of anticoagulation knowledge.

METHODS: A prospective, cross-sectional study conducted at selected community pharmacies. A 33-item, self-administered questionnaire called the Oral Anticoagulation understanding Tool (AKT) was adopted to evaluate patient understanding of anticoagulant medication in urban population. Scores were calculated on each domain and the association between patients’ knowledge. All responses were evaluated in order to recognise at-risk patients and knowledge gaps. Binary logistic regression analysis was employed to assess variables associated with oral anticoagulation knowledge among participants. SPSS version 22.0 was used for statistical analysis.
RESULTS: The mean percentage knowledge score for the study population (N=323) was 42.38. Age has been found to have a negative correlation with anticoagulant therapy knowledge (p = 0.01) indicating a need for targeted education in elderly populations. It was discovered that there were gaps in knowledge regarding important areas of use and self-management, including the identification of bleeding as a serious side effect of medication, drug-drug interactions, and dose omission.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: This research article highlights urban participant’s knowledge gaps in oral anticoagulation. Targeted educational interventions by the pharmacists are vital to improve patient safety and treatment outcomes. Advancing age was inversely associated with knowledge. Further research could explore long-term impacts of educational interventions on larger populations.