ABSTRACT
Background:Peptic ulcer disease (PUD) is a break in the inner lining of the stomach, first part of the small intestine or sometimes the lower oesophagus. PUD is one of the most common gastro enterologic diseases affecting upperGIT. It has been reported that there is a low level of knowledge of PUD in general population and discrepancies also exist among care givers, in understanding pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of PUD.
Purpose: This study assessed the knowledge of peptic ulcer disease among pharmacy students in University of Benin.
Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study, using a well-structured self-designed questionnaire, made up of questions pertaining to the aetiology, symptoms, pathophysiology, risk factors, diagnosis, differential diagnosis, complications, and treatment of PUD was used to extract levels of knowledge PUD from 600L students and 300L students. Then, the mean scores were calculated using SPSS and compared.
Results: The results showed that the overall mean knowledge among the students was 22.29±2.5 for the final year pharmacy students and 12.44±4.7 among the 300L students. In terms of proportions for the 600L students, 94 (90.38%) had “Good knowledge”, 10(9.61%) had “average or moderate” knowledge while none (0%) had “poor” knowledge of PUD. In the 300L class, 1(0.87%) had ‘‘Adequate’’ knowledge, 55(48.25%) had “average or moderate” knowledge whilst 58(50.87%) had “poor” knowledge.
Conclusion: Final year pharmacy students have good knowledge of Peptic ulcer disease and there is a significant difference in the mean knowledge score of the final year class and 300L class (P < 0.05).
