Opinions of Pharmacy students about community pharmacy internship course in Iran: An approach to promote educational program

The community pharmacy internship course is a key component to provide the required knowledge and skills for community pharmacy practices, which is an important field of practice for graduate pharmacists in Iran. In view of this, this study endeavored to explore and analyze pharmacy studentschr('39') experiences in different arenas of community pharmacy internship program.

This cross-sectional descriptive, analytical study was conducted among 90 pharmacy students of Isfahan university of medical sciences during 2017-2018. Census sampling was used to include students who successfully passed pharmacy internship course in the first time, during the last year. Students who did not completed questionnaire were excluded from the study. Questionnaire research tool was designed by researcher with using Carrido’s study questionnaire and applied after confirmation of its validity and reliability. Data were analyzed with independent sample t-test, one sample t-test, Chi-square test and Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficient.

All students responded to the questionnaire which revealed they experienced high level of satisfaction (90.5 from 100) during pharmacy internship course. However, participation in some internship activities such as extemporaneous compounding of prescriptions, filling, compounding and pricing of prescriptions, recording of entries in prescription or other required record books and inventory of drugs were significantly lower than the expected mean level (P < 0.001). Moreover, independent sample t-test revealed that the mean scores of knowledge (P = 0.002), skills (P = 0.02) and level of satisfaction (P = 0.001) were significantly higher in male pharmacy students than female.

Nonetheless, students revealed the overall positive perception during pharmacy internship, but some barriers and problems reported during the study require more attention to promote the quality of this course.