Students’ perceptions of pharmacy as a specialization and their future career : a cross sectional study of final year pharmacy students in Jordan

Abstract EN

This study aimed to establish a baseline understanding of the career aspirations, motivations and expectations of students within undergraduate pharmacy education in Jordan and to examine students’ incentives to select pharmacy and how they feel about their choice as they are approaching graduation.

A draft survey instrument was designed to collect the required information.

The questionnaire was administered to final year pharmacy students (B.Sc.

Pharmacy and PharmD) at the University of Jordan and the Jordan University of science and Technology.

The questionnaire was administered at the end of all lectures at both universities.

Following data collection, responses were coded and entered into a customized database in SPSS, version 17, for statistical analyses.

Chi-square and Fisher exact tests were used to test for significant differences between groups A total of 240 final-year pharmacy students took part in the present study.

The majority of respondents (n=147, 61.3%) indicated that pharmacy was not their first choice of study at the time of application to universities.

More than half (n=138, 57.5%) the respondents claimed that they were optimistic regarding the future of pharmacy as a profession.

When asked to rank pharmacy among different suggested professions, the majority of respondents (n=95, 39.58%) ranked pharmacy second after medicine and before dentistry.

The majority of respondents (n=202, 84.17%) thought they had a positive self image.

Students studying pharmacy seem to have optimistic aspirations of their future career and a positive image.

Further qualitative research is needed to gain more in-depth understanding of this issue and to create a realistic connection between market needs and pharmacy education outputs.