THE STUDY ON STUDENT'S SELF-ASSESSMENT OF PHARMACEUTICAL-CARE SKILLS IN NURSING STUDENTS, URMIA UNIVERSITY OF MEDICAL SCIENCES

Pharmacology education in nursing is a process to teach the students to acquire the necessary skills in the field of patient's pharmaceutical-cares, and the acquisition of these skills is one of the necessary qualifications in the nursing profession. The aim of this study was to evaluate nursing student's perception of their important skills in pharmaceutical-care. This cross-sectional study involved all the nursing students in their second, third and fourth years of study. The data were gathered by a questionnaire consisting of demographic data, the question on presence or absence of weaknesses in pharmacology and table of Self-Assessment Rating Score (SARS), and they were finally analyzed by SPSS statistical software (ver.16). 56/3% of participants were male and 43/7% were female. Except in patient education skills, in other skills over 65% of students had poor assessment of their pharmaceutical care skills. Students estimated themselves highly weak in their ability to detect the common side effects of medicines, and highly capable in patient education. Students evaluated their pharmaceutical care's skills as poor. These findings highlight a flaw in the student's professional competencies that require immediate attention to fix it. We hope to be able to apply appropriate ways to further improve the quality of education of nursing students in an effort to double.