Assessing career aspirations and influencing factors: a case study of final year undergraduate Pharmacy Students in Uganda

Abstract

The World Health Organization estimates world over shortage of health workers by 2035. Despite the increase in number of undergraduate pharmacy schools and students in Uganda, there is still critical shortage of pharmacists in public hospitals. Public hospitals being the major way through which over half of Uganda’s population access medical care, shortage of pharmacists affects quality healthcare delivery.

Understanding the career aspirations of finalist Bachelor of pharmacy students who are prospective pharmacists and the factors influencing their aspirations will greatly influence the availability of pharmacists in the respective sectors.

Objectives To determine career aspirations of final year undergraduate Pharmacy students and it’s influencing factors in Uganda.

Methods

The research employed a quantitative cross-sectional study among 282 finalist students of Bachelor of Pharmacy in all the 3 universities in Uganda, mean age of 26 years, age range 20 - 42 years, males 71.1 %. The study was carried out by distributing online links of the study questionnaires to the different whatsapp class groups of the students. The questionnaire contained three sections of multiple choice and semi-structured questions. Simple frequency was used to determine proportion, bivariate and multi variate analysis done to determine the variables predicting career aspirations of the students.

Results Out of 282 anticipated responses, we got 211 responses representing a 75% response rate (211/282). 54/211(25.6%) were interested in doing community pharmacy immediately after qualification well as 52/211(24.7%) were interested in doing clinical pharmacy 5 years post qualification. Work environment, selected by majority 73/211(34.6%) of the participants with very high importance was the most influential factor in choosing career path while geographical location selected by majority 52/211(24.6%) of the participants with very low importance was the least influential factor in choosing a career path by the students. At bivariate, marital status, gender, work experience, Point of entry into Bachelor of Pharmacy and Background profession were associated with career aspirations involving direct patient care. At Multi-variate, only point of entry into Bachelor of Pharmacy was significantly associated with career aspirations involving direct patient care. Conclusions The findings reflect interest of students to practice direct patient care (clinical and community pharmacy), in light to shortage of pharmacists in different pharmacy sectors public hospitals inclusive and work environment was regarded with high importance in choosing a particular career path.