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.