Survey Development
An extensive review of the literature was conducted to inform the
development of items within this survey14. The survey was
administered in the Arabic language (common across the MENA region). A
variety of questions relevant to the study objectives, were also sourced
from many avenues the research team had (e.g. FIP/WHO documents). The
research team revised the survey in order to eliminate duplicates and
refine question. The team further checked for local context and the
aptness of language (slight regional variations in nuanced meanings of
words).
In order to ensure survey face validity, six expert academics in
Pharmacy Practice and Education were requested to evaluate the first
draft. A pretest for the survey was conducted and necessary refinements
were made. The pretest included evaluating the survey from different
aspects such as the wording and the clarity of the questions and whether
each question is relevant for inclusion with respect to the study
objectives. As a final point in the survey development, the research
team re-examined each question and made sure that the survey was
suitable for online administration (relevance, clarity, context,
response categories, format and layout).
The final version of the survey was organized into five main sections
that address several topics of interest. The first sectionincluded items aimed at collecting participant’s demographic data. The
latter four sections included several items relevant to the study
objectives (Figure 1).
Countries of the participants were grouped into geographic clusters
(regions) that are: East Mediterranean countries and Iraq, Egypt, North
Africa, Gulf countries, and other Arab countries.