A study of the knowledge on alzheimer's disease among pharmacy students in Universiti Teknologi MARA Puncak Alam / Evy Mischele Michael

Introduction: It is expected that there will be an increase the elderly population by the year 2050. Subsequently, there will be an increase in Alzheimer's disease (AD); a neurodegenerative disease affecting specifically the elderly.
Objective: To investigate the level of AD's knowledge among the pharmacy students in Universiti Teknologi Mara Puncak Alam (UiTM).
Method: A 30-item validate questionnaire, known as the Alzheimer's Disease Knowledge Scale among the pharmacy student in UiTM Puncak Alam was used to assess the pharmacy student's knowledge on AD.
Result: 439 (63%) of the pharmacy students had participated in the study. Their overall AD knowledge was slightly moderate. There was a statistically significant result on the demographic variable which influences the AD's knowledge among the pharmacy student. Those who scored higher were those who is older in age, on their 4th year of study and those who was confident with their own AD's knowledge. The student also scored poorly on 2 domains out of the 7 domains which was the risk factor and diagnosis of the disease.
Conclusion: The pharmacy students require more information regarding AD since their knowledge is only slightly above moderate. In order to compensate and manage with the upcoming increase in the AD's prevalence, the pharmacy students are required to have higher level ofknowledge, specifically on the risk factor and diagnosis domain. A psychiatric centred academic course could be implemented to tackle this problem.