Experiential community pharmacy training: Assessment of students’ perceptions in the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

Introduction: Community pharmacy settings provide places for promoting the effective and safe use of medicines all over the world. This study explored pharmacy students’ perceptions of the barriers they had faced during their community pharmacy training as well as the factors affecting the training process outcome and their satisfaction with the training programme. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among pharmacy students who had received their training in community settings and studied at academic institutions across the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A well-designed and validated questionnaire was employed. Logistic regression analyses were used to identify independent predictors of the students’ satisfaction with their training experience. Results: A total of 250 (83.3%) pharmacy students responded to the questionnaire. The results showed that the students were satisfied with their training experiences. However, they faced some barriers, such as not being able to respond to drug information inquiries from patients and/or interact with other healthcare providers and/or patients. Additionally, these factors were identified as independent predictors of the students’ satisfaction with the training programme - that is, having a BSc. in Pharmacy as an academic major (p=0.001), a student being in his/her fourth year of study (p=0.003), increasing the average number of prescriptions per day at the pharmacy site (p=0.004), having used prescription software at the pharmacy site (p=0.049), and increasing the number of pharmacy preceptors in the pharmacy site per day (p=0.002). Conclusion: This study confirmed that a training programme will help equip pharmacy students with the required knowledge and skills to practice the pharmacy profession effectively. However, the trainees reported barriers and problems that they had faced throughout their training.

Professional and Academic Perspectives of Pharmacy Students: A Cross Sectional-Study from Brazil

“…The demographic characteristics of the student are in line with the profile found in other faculties from different regions of Brazil. For instance, the mean age agreed with values reported in faculties from the southeast region (De Oliveira et al, 2017;Almetwazi et al, 2020;Alnajjar et al, 2020). The mean age was high when compared to the mean age of 18 years when most of the students complete the intermediate scholar degree.…”

Students' experience and evaluation of community pharmacy internship in Iraq

“…Numerous studies have explored the students' perception of the trainer, training site, and their opinion about the outcome of the training. For instance, in a study conducted in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) (Alnajjar & Mohammed, 2020) amongst 250 pharmacy students who had completed their training in community pharmacies, nearly half of them reflected the considerable interpersonal skills of the preceptor, which has imposed a positive effect during their training. In addition, they reported the crucial role of the preceptors in providing encouragement and support to acquire more practical knowledge.…”

“…After a thorough review of the literature, the survey questionnaire was adopted from previous studies (Young et al, 2014;Carrido et al, 2015;Carrido et al, 2016;Almetwazi et al, 2020;Alnajjar & Mohammed, 2020) with some modifications to meet the study goals. The questionnaire consisted of two main domains; the first domain included questions about the sociodemographic information of the participant and the preceptor, training site (site of pharmacy in the provenance, type of pharmacy, average daily dispensing rate, average training time, whether the preceptor was a pharmacist, and the number of interns in each pharmacy).…”

“…Furthermore, internship programmes are considered an integral part of pharmacy education to develop professionalism by training the student in in real-world setting. It is also required to deliver qualified graduates with highquality skills and knowledge (Rodger et al, 2008;Alnajjar & Mohammed, 2020).…”

“…The review of the literature demonstrated a large number of studies that have evaluated the pharmacy internship programmes in the region (Sattari, 2012;El Hajj et al, 2014;Almetwazi et al, 2020;Alnajjar & Mohammed, 2020). However, none of these studies was conducted in Iraq.…”