Perception of pharmacy students towards their community pharmacy training experience: a cross-sectional study from Jordan

Abstract

Background The fact that pharmacists are in the front line of patients’ care gives a great responsibility to focus on education and training of pharmacy students to build a ‘patient-centered’ clinicians. Unfortunately, pharmacy education in the developing countries, have been lagging behind actual practice delivered by pharmacists. This highlighted the need to evaluate the perceptions of undergraduate pharmacy students regarding their current pharmacy training practices and experiences. Methods This is a cross-sectional study that was conducted in Jordan during the period from August 2018 to October 2018. During the study period, a questionnaire was distributed to pharmacy students to collect information regarding 1) pharmaceutical care services provided by them during their experiential training, 2) their perceptions towards training sites, 3) their perceptions of the outcomes of their training experience, 4) information about their training site and 5) their demographics characteristics. Results A total of 202 pharmacy students responded to the questionnaire. The majority of them reported having the opportunity to dispense refill or new prescriptions (73.8%, n = 149), and conduct patient interviews (69.8%, n = 141, but they were not provided good opportunities to create electronic patient profiles using the information obtained (53.0%, n = 107), perform required dose calculations based on patient information (37.6%, n = 76), and interact with other healthcare professionals (34.6%, n = 70). In addition, students showed positive attitudes toward training sites, positive feedback about the outcomes of their training experience (median scores range between 4 and 5 for all statements (IQR = 1 for all)). Conclusion Students showed positive feedback about the outcomes of their training experience, but they felt that the selected training sites do not have adequate resources to meet their training competencies. Memorandums of understanding development is needed to specify the purpose of training and define the responsibility for both parties of the training process.

A visual thinking strategy enhances an undergraduate human physiology course offered by a Peruvian Pharmacy and Biochemistry School

“…To this end, the course must possess avenues where students can communicate freely about their learning styles. A survey among 202 Jordanian pharmacy students found that learning tools and adopting specific behaviours and study habits promoted by their institution's learning centers enhance student performance (Abu Farha et al, 2021).…”

Perception of Jordanian pharmacy students towards community pharmacy-virtual training experience during COVID-19 outbreak

“…The literature was reviewed 2,11,17,18 and a published questionnaire by Abufarha et al 13 which evaluated the perceptions of undergraduate pharmacy students regarding their current conventional pharmacy training practices was adopted to develop the online survey that suits the aim of this study. The final version of the survey was designed using the general principles of good survey design.…”

“…Similar to other academic courses, this field training was utterly switched to a virtual training modality in order to reduce the risk of infection. 13 Another measurement that can be taken into consideration as a result of the new pandemic is the mental health of the students, which has a high impact on their learning process. 14 A recent study evaluated the stress levels among Indian students, any psychological imbalances, and their major hurdles during the CoViD-19 lockdown.…”