Pharmacy students' perceptions of their profession relative to other health care professions

Objectives (1) To investigate pharmacy students' perceptions of 10 occupations within the medical and allied professions: community pharmacists, dentists, dietitians, general medical practitioners (GPs), hospital pharmacists, medical specialists, nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and social workers. (2) To explore students' perceptions of community and hospital pharmacists at different stages of a four-year undergraduate programme and at the year of pre-registration training.

Method A 90-item questionnaire was administered to 543 pharmacy undergraduates and 95 graduates undergoing their pre-registration year training in 2001.

Setting Faculty of Pharmacy, The University of Sydney, Australia.

Key findings Students perceived the health care professions along three major dimensions, relating to “empathy”, “potency” and “expertise”. On an empathy dimension, students rated community pharmacists the highest and medical specialists the lowest. On a potency dimension, students rated medical specialists the most powerful, community and hospital pharmacists significantly lower, and nurses the lowest. On an expertise dimension, students rated medical specialists the highest and dietitians the lowest. A significant pattern of differences was noted in students' perceptions and a possible decline was identified in the potency rating of pharmacists at different stages of the pharmacy programme.

Conclusion These differences may be attributed to the differences in the students' value systems, skills and experiences, the influence of reference groups and the content and structure of the educational and training programme in each year.