Purpose: To describe Faculty of Pharmacy experience in the development of an elective course of pharmacist's roles in disaster management for third-year pharmacy students and to evaluate the effectiveness of this innovative teaching module in students' knowledge and their perception of the introduction of this specific course into their curriculum.
Methods: An expert team of physicians, surgeons and pharmacists of the Service de Santé des Armées, pharmacists teaching at the Faculty and pharmacists of Bataillon des Marins Pompiers de Marseille defined the program of a 30-hour module in disaster response in line with previously published recommendations, literature analysis and international guidelines on disaster response training. Students' knowledge of key competencies was assessed after each teaching session through a multiple-choice questionnaire. Assessment of self-perceived students' knowledge, teaching quality and students' degree of satisfaction was carried out using a volunteer survey just after the last teaching, the November 15th.
Results: The creation of the final curriculum resulted in a course of 6 modules. Concerning the students' knowledge of key competencies, a mean score of 19/25 for the multiple-choice questionnaire was obtained. 98.3% of students reported that this teaching allowed them to improve their knowledge in the field of pharmacist's roles in disaster management. 79.3% of them will recommend this optional course.
Conclusion: This teaching represents a potential to increase the number of pharmacists prepared to respond to disasters. It also expands students' understanding of pharmacist's roles and stimulates their interest in emergency preparedness. Further formation, including emergency simulation in mass triage will be conducted next year.
Keywords: Crisis management; France; pharmacy practice; pharmacy students; terrorism.