Attitudes of undergraduate pharmacy students toward inter-professional collaboration: Analysis of survey in a Nigerian University

The focus of pharmacy education has shifted from product based training to patient care which require Pharmacists to practice in multidisciplinary settings with members of other healthcare professionals. The development of interprofessional collaborative attitudes towards teamwork is known to occur well before graduation. Attitudes of pharmacists towards physicians and other healthcare professionals have influence on quality of future collaboration in patient care decisions. There is evidence to suggest that developing right attitudes during training can enhance collaboration during post-graduation team work in patient care decisions. The objective of this study is to evaluate students’ attitudes towards collaboration with physicians when carrying out pharmaceutical care services.

This was a cross sectional survey study among fourth and fifth year pharmacy students. The sixteen item “scale of attitudes towards physician and pharmacist collaboration” [SATP2C] questionnaire was used to explore their attitudes. The four item Likert scale instrument was self-administered and respondents were asked to tick the option that best reflect their attitude (1=strongly agree, 2-agree, 3-disagree, 4-strongly disagree). Analysis was done using descriptive and inferential statistics (Students t test) and P value ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Attitudes of pharmacy students towards physician collaboration was generally high, a result that was not affected by gender and year of study. Pharmacy student’s positive collaborative attitudes with physician holds better promise for integration into clinical teamwork for improved outcomes for patients after qualification.

The positive attitude among pharmacy students towards collaboration with physicians should be emphasized during training to adequately prepare them for post qualification teamwork.