Course experiences, satisfaction and career intent of final year pre-registration Australian pharmacy students

Background In Australia, the profession of pharmacy has undergone many changes to adapt to the needs of the community. In recent years, concerns have been raised with evidence emerging of workforce saturation in traditional pharmacy practice sectors. It is not known how current final year pharmacy students’ perceive the different pharmacy career paths in this changing environment. Hence investigating students’ current experiences with their pharmacy course, interaction with the profession and developing an understanding of their career intentions would be an important step, as these students would make up a large proportion of future pharmacy workforce Objective The objective of this study was thus to investigate final year students’ career perspectives and the reasons for choosing pharmacy, satisfaction with this choice of pharmacy as a tertiary course and a possible future career, factors affecting satisfaction and intention of future career paths. Methods A quantitative cross sectional survey of final year students from 3 Australian universities followed by a qualitative semi-structured interview of a convenience sample of final year students from the University of Sydney. Results ‘Interest in health and medicine’ was the most important reason for choosing pharmacy (n=238). The majority of students were ‘somewhat satisfied’ with the choice of pharmacy (35.7%) as a course and possible future career. Positive associations were found between satisfaction and reasons for joining pharmacy such as ‘felt pharmacy is a good profession’ (p=0.003) while negative associations included ‘joined pharmacy as a gateway to medicine or dentistry’ (p=0.001). Quantitate and qualitative results showed the most frequent perception of community pharmacy was ‘changing’ while hospital and pharmaceutical industry was described as ‘competitive’ and ‘research’ respectively. The highest career intention was community followed by hospital pharmacy. Conclusion Complex factors including university experiences are involved in shaping students’ satisfaction and perception of career. This may relate to challenges in the community pharmacy sector, job opportunities in hospital and limited understanding of the pharmaceutical industry. The results offer insight for the profession in terms of entry into various roles and also to pharmacy educators for their roles in shaping curricula and placement experiences that attract future graduates to defined career pathways in pharmacy

Antihypertensive medication utilization and adverse drug reactions in the elderly : study design and baseline characteristics

Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) may result in significant burden to both individual patients and health systems. A number of risk factors have been identified for ADRs, and the elderly have long been recognised as a high‐risk group for medication misadventure, including ADRs. Previous studies have explored the role of high‐risk medications such as digoxin and warfarin in ADRs however little work has been done on the contribution of antihypertensive medications to ADRs in the elderly. Hypertension is one of the most common cardiovascular conditions and antihypertensive medications are considered among the most commonly prescribed medications in the elderly. A cross sectional observational study of patients aged 65 years and over, admitted to a major metropolitan teaching hospital during 2010 was conducted to explore the role of antihypertensive medication in adverse drug reactions. This paper presents the study design and baseline characteristics of the study population. The study population comprised 503 patients. The mean age was 80.3 years and 59% of the study population were female. Over two thirds of patients (69.1%) had a documented diagnosis of hypertension in their medical record and 67.3% were using antihypertensive medications on admission to hospital.5 page(s

Emotional intelligence and perceived stress of Australian pre-registration healthcare students : a multi-disciplinary cross-sectional study

Background: Healthcare students can experience high levels of stress. Emotional intelligence can moderate stress and increase wellbeing however there has been no prior research on the relationship between emotional intelligence and stress in Australian healthcare students. Objectives: To measure emotional intelligence (EI) and perceived stress (PS) in final year healthcare students (nursing, pharmacy and dentistry), and to explore the relationships between EI, PS and discipline. Design and Setting: A cross sectional survey of pre-registration healthcare students at a metropolitan university in Australia. Participants: 203 pre-registration final year healthcare students (n = 58 nursing; n = 112 pharmacy; n = 34 dentistry). Methods: Emotional Intelligence was measured using the GENOS Emotional Intelligence Inventory (Concise Version) and stress was measured using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Results: A significant negative correlation was found between EI and PS in nursing and pharmacy students. No difference was found in EI across disciplines. Mean EI scores were lower than normative means. PS was significantly higher than the normative mean for pharmacy and dentistry students and higher than nursing students. Conclusions: Emotional intelligence can have a protective effect against stress for healthcare students and can be increased via targeted educational interventions. To support student wellbeing there is a clear need for preregistration healthcare curricula to include educational components on strengthening EI

Evaluation of a survey tool to measure safety climate in Australian hospital pharmacy staff

Background Safety climate evaluation is increasingly used by hospitals as part of quality improvement initiatives. Consequently, it is necessary to have validated tools to measure changes. Objective: To evaluate the construct validity and internal consistency of a survey tool to measure Australian hospital pharmacy patient safety climate. Methods: A 42 item cross-sectional survey was used to evaluate the patient safety climate of 607 Australian hospital pharmacy staff. Survey responses were initially mapped to the factor structure previously identified in European community pharmacy. However, as the data did not adequately fit the community pharmacy model, participants were randomly split into two groups with exploratory factor analysis performed on the first group (n = 302) and confirmatory factor analyses performed on the second group (n = 305). Results: Following exploratory factor analysis (59.3% variance explained) and confirmatory factor analysis, a 6-factor model containing 28 items was obtained with satisfactory model fit (χ2 (335) = 664.61 p < 0.001, RMSEA = 0.06, CFI = 0.93, TLI = 0.92), internal reliability (α > 0.643) and model nesting between the groups (Δχ2 (22) = 30.87, p = 0.10). Three factors (blame culture, organisational learning and working conditions) were similar to those identified in European community pharmacy and labelled identically. Three additional factors (preoccupation with improvement; comfort to question authority; and safety issues being swept under the carpet) highlight hierarchical issues present in hospital settings. Conclusions: This study has demonstrated the validity of a survey to evaluate patient safety climate of Australian hospital pharmacy staff. Importantly, this validated factor structure may be used to evaluate changes in safety climate over time.No Full Tex

An exploration of Australian hospital pharmacists' attitudes to patient safety.

Objectives: To explore the attitudes of Australian hospital pharmacists towards patient safety in their work settings. Methods: A safety climate questionnaire was administered to all 2347 active members of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia in 2010. Part of the survey elicited free‐text comments about patient safety, error and incident reporting. The comments were subjected to thematic analysis to determine the attitudes held by respondents in relation to patient safety and its quality management in their work settings. Key findings: Two hundred and ten (210) of 643 survey respondents provided comments on safety and quality issues related to their work settings. The responses contained a number of dominant themes including issues of workforce and working conditions, incident reporting systems, the response when errors occur, the presence or absence of a blame culture, hospital management support for safety initiatives, openness about errors and the value of teamwork. A number of pharmacists described the development of a mature patient‐safety culture – one that is open about reporting errors and active in reducing their occurrence. Others described work settings in which a culture of blame persists, stifling error reporting and ultimately compromising patient safety. Conclusion: Australian hospital pharmacists hold a variety of attitudes that reflect diverse workplace cultures towards patient safety, error and incident reporting. This study has provided an insight into these attitudes and the actions that are needed to improve the patient‐safety culture within Australian hospital pharmacy work settings.No Full Tex