Binos, Richard Simon R, Lara, Katrice P, Yu, Anne Hazel C, Loquias, Monet M.
Objective: The pharmacy profession has experienced a shift towards pharmaceutical care. Thus, as future pharmacists, pharmacy students are presented with the challenge of being confident and competent in providing pharmaceutical care to patients. This study aimed to determine the perception of pharmacy students in Metro Manila towards their preparedness to provide pharmaceutical care and to explore the effects of demographic variables and pharmacy-related attributes on their perceived preparedness.
Methods: A cross sectional, non-experimental, analytic research design was employed in this study. A structured survey questionnaire employing a 5-point Likert scale was used to determine the students’ perceptions of their skills, which were expressed in terms of their means and standard deviations. Independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson’s correlation coefficient were also employed to determine associations between demographics, pharmacy-related attributes, and perceived preparedness.
Results: A total of 262 students from 9 pharmacy schools participated in this study. Results showed that students had a mean preparedness score of 3.59, which is above average. Among different competency areas, students rated themselves highest in the psychological competency (3.68) and lowest in the administrative competency (3.45). Sex was found to be significantly associated with their perceived preparedness, whereas school was found to be significantly associated with the communication and research competency areas only. Students’ knowledge, motivation, experience, interest and expectation relative to pharmacy practice and pharmaceutical care were found to have significantly direct relationships with the students’ perceptions of preparedness.
Conclusion: In general, students may perceive themselves to be ready and competent enough to provide pharmaceutical care, although improvements in the curriculum and in pharmacy internship programs were still recommended to increase student preparedness in specific areas of competency.
