the effectiveness of a mobile application in enhancing community pharmacists' knowledge of natural herbs and drug interactions

Background & objective: the use of natural herbs is steadily increasing worldwide. this increase has led to a growing number of individuals seeking advice and guidance from community pharmacists on natural herbs. unfortunately, community pharmacists often lack sufficient knowledge concerning the uses, side effects, and drug interactions of these natural herbs. this study aims to develop and evaluate the quality and effectiveness of a mobile application that focuses on common natural herbs and their interactions with medications, enhancing the knowledge of syrian community pharmacists.materilas & methods: the smartphone application (herbal guide) was created and installed on the participants' phones. a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design was conducted involving twenty-three participants. they completed both tests to evaluate the application's impact on enhancing the knowledge of syrian community pharmacists. statistical analysis involved using the paired- t-test to compare pre-test and post-test results, while cronbach's alpha was employed to measure the internal consistency of the evaluation questionnaire statements.results: ninety-six pharmacists participated in this study, with only twenty-three completing both the pre-test and post-test and meeting the criteria. the application significantly improved the knowledge of syrian community pharmacists regarding common natural herbs and their interactions with medications. the mean and standard deviation of the participants' results before using the application was 17.56 ± 1.22, compared to 22.04 ± 1.47 after using the application. there was a significant difference in average scores before and after using the application (p = 0.002). there were no statistically significant differences between the average grades of participants and their gender (p = 0.34) or their years of experience (p = 0.10). most participants found the application easy to use, effective, and characterized by high-quality content and design.conclusion: the introduction of the new mobile application, herbal guide, resulted in an enhancement of knowledge among syrian community pharmacists regarding common natural herbs and their interactions with medications, as evidenced by positive feedback from the study participants.