A Cross Sectional and Longitudinal Study of Pharmacy Student Perceptions of Readiness to Serve Diverse Populations

Abstract

Objective. To examine students' self-perceptions at different stages in a pharmacy curriculum of competence related to serving culturally diverse patients and to compare self-reported competence of a student cohort near the beginning and end of the degree program. Methods. Student perceptions across four pharmacy class years were measured in a cross-sectional survey, with a follow-up longitudinal survey of one cohort three years later. Results. Based on an 81.9% response rate (537/656), scores showed no attitude changes. Reported knowledge, skills, comfort in clinical encounters, and curricular preparedness increased across program years. Fourth-year (P4) pharmacy students reported the highest scores. Scores differed by gender, age, and race/ethnicity. Students in the fourth year scored lower on importance of diversity training. Conclusion. Improved perceptions of readiness (ie, knowledge and behavior) to serve diverse groups suggest the curriculum impacts these constructs, while the invariance of student attitudes and association of self-reports with programmatic outcomes warrant further investigation.

For a Healthy (and) Higher Education: Evidences from Learning Outcomes in Health Sciences

“…This is in fact difficult to do, and one must be cautious with the operationalisation of LO, particularly the less-mentioned categories, which must be considered in the context of LO found to be more relevant. Concerning the respect for diversity and multiculturalism skills' low focus, this result corroborates Crawford et al's [56] findings; i.e., health students' self-perceptions of competence related to cultural diversity were low. Although cultural competence is increasingly included in medical curricula to counter related health issues, Lu et al [57] suggest that the training often risks reinforcing negative stereotypes.…”

A Call to Action for a Programmatic Approach to Addressing Health Disparities and Cultural Competency in Pharmacy Education

“…Prior pharmacy literature has certainly underscored the importance of integrating HDCC content within curricula and providing frameworks for integration, assessment tools, experiential experience training, addressing the needs of certain diverse populations, and recommendations for increasing diversity within the profession. [13][14][15][16][17] However, there remains limited research in implementing a holistic, programmatic approach to HDCC education. A literature search was conducted previously to explore other disciplines and there were few successes described in the literature.…”

Cultural Competency-Related Content among Florida Colleges of Pharmacy Curricula

“…This paradigm implies defining competencies students should demonstrate at graduation, developing learning objectives, instructional strategies, and evaluation techniques for each learning objective. A recent study demonstrated students' self-perception towards cultural competency increasing in terms of knowledge and skills, but not in attitude throughout their program years (Crawford et al, 2016).…”