1Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacy Administration, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
2Faculty of Technology, African Institute for Science Policy and Innovation, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
*Corresponding Author E-mail: niyiolaolorun@gmail.com; niyiolaolorun@oauife.edu.ng
Online published on 29 August, 2014.
The study aimed to assess the level of adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) in pharmaceutical service delivery in selected tertiary hospitals in South-western Nigeria in line with Rogers’ adoption process model.
A cross-sectional survey of 117 pharmacists from eight selected tertiary hospitals in South-western Nigeria. Ethical approval was obtained from the Research and Ethics Committees of the hospitals. Primary data were employed for the study. The instrument used was a set of questionnaire which was designed to elicit information on demographics of respondents and levels of adoption of available technologies using a scale of five alternative responses of awareness, persuasion, decision, implementation and confirmation with weighting scores of 1–5 respectively. Weighted average (wa) score for each technology was taken as indicator of adoption level (AL). Only a technology with AL approximating 4 or 5 was taken to be adopted. The mean of the adoption levels (MAL) was also computed as mean of weighted averages.
Only one (4.8%) of the twenty-one available technologies namely telephone (AL = 3.71), was adopted. An MAL value of 2.23 was obtained.
Only telephone technology had been effectively adopted for supporting pharmaceutical service delivery in the selected hospitals. Overall, adoption of ICT was at persuasion level. The MAL value has potential to serve as an overall index of level of adoption of technology but more studies remain for its validation.
Technology, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), pharmaceutical service delivery, adoption level, adoption level index, tertiary hospital Nigeria
