Assessment of Knowledge and Perception of Medical Students of Undergraduate Pharmacy Training at a Nigerian University

  • Muslim Olakunle Jamiu
  • Abdulganiyu Giwa
  • Roland Nnaemeka Okoro
Keywords: Pharmacy, clinical, knowledge, perception, healthcare

Abstract

Background: Pharmacy training involves basic and applied sciences. The clinical aspect of the training in Nigeria is an emerging one in the past few decades. Inter-professional collaboration among pharmacists and physicians could be enhanced with physicians’ knowledge of pharmacist’s background in clinical training.

Objectives: This study was conducted to assess medical student of the University of Ilorin knowledge and perception of training of undergraduate pharmacy students.

Methods: The study was a descriptive, cross‑sectional study conducted among medical students of 200 to 600 level of the University of Ilorin, Nigeria in February 2017. A total of 302 students were selected by purposive sampling.  The questionnaires were self-administered; retrieved, sorted and analyzed using SPSS version 17. Data were presented in text and tables, and chi-square test was used to determine the significant association between categorical variables. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered significant.

Results: The most occurring age group among the students was 21-25 years and the percentage of male students was 53.0%. Majority of the students were admitted through UTME (75.0%).  About 63% of the respondents were aware of the similarity in the admission requirement of pharmacy to medicine. Only 53.6% were aware of clinical training for pharmacy students. Up to 66.2% had the knowledge of degree obtained in pharmacy as B. Pharm and up to 72.2% agreed that pharmacists were important members of the health care team. Mode of entry and gender influenced knowledge of pharmacy undergraduate training, p-value 0.007 and 0.000 respectively.

Conclusion: There was a high level of knowledge among medical students of clinical training in pharmacy education and the majority of them agreed that pharmacists could be important members of the health care team. Hence, there is a high expectation that there could be a better inter-professional relationship among this generation of health care professionals.

Author Biographies

Muslim Olakunle Jamiu

Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacy Practice, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria

Abdulganiyu Giwa

Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacy Practice, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria

Roland Nnaemeka Okoro

Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacy Administration, University of Maiduguri, Maiduguri, Nigeria

Published
2019-07-31