Exploring the undermined: Pharmacy students' perceptions of their role models’ core competencies

Abstract

Background: As an integrated part of pharmacy education, role modelling is pivotal in fostering desirable professional attributes in students. This study aimed to explore top pharmacist role model competencies as perceived by pharmacy students of different years of the curriculum.   Methods: A newly developed 14-item questionnaire (The Competencies of Role Models in Pharmacy (CRMP) questionnaire) was distributed among 207 pharmacy students and filled out anonymously, and the results obtained were analysed on SPSS 26 software. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to check data normality, and Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis was utilised to assess the variations in CRMP scores based on the students’ academic year.    Results: Teaching skills and professionalism were the most vital attributes selected by pharmacy students, followed by communication skills and laboratory skills. Interestingly, students perceived business and entrepreneurship skills as well as the career status of role models as the least essential competencies. Moreover, notable differences were observed in the overall opinions of students in different academic years, which may be indicative of the dynamic changes in student perspectives as they move forward in their pharmacy programme.     Conclusion: The competencies of pharmacist role models were assessed and ranked according to their importance as perceived by pharmacy students across different academic years. This information helps gain insight into students’ prioritisation of role model competencies and sheds light on the path toward developing future role model training/assessment programmes to improve the quality of pharmacy education.