Prospective Career Preferences of Imminent Pharmacist

Abstract

The present was conducted with the aim to identify the career preferences and the attributing factors of the career ambitions of fifth professional pharmacy undergraduate students. A previously developed and validated questionnaire was administered to fifth professional pharmacy undergraduate students of different private and government universities of Karachi. The students were asked to complete six sectioned questionnaire to identify the students’ career preferences and future career ambitions. Descriptive statistics were used to elucidate participant’s characteristics and their response to the questionnaire items. Chi square test was used at 0.05 level of significance to observe influence of gender and institutions on their responses. Out of 550, 458 questionnaires were returned back hence the response rate was 83.27%.Industrial pharmacy (31.44%) and hospital pharmacy (31.22%) were the most desired areas of upcoming pharmacy students to start their career. Getting the opportunity to be the part of healthcare team (83.4%) and utilizing their knowledge (83.84%) were the major reasons for selecting particular area of pharmacy practice. In this study the students showed positive attitude towards the pharmacy profession. Industrial and hospital pharmacy were the most preferred choices of pharmacy students to start their career. KEYWORDS: Pharmacy students, career preferences, future career ambitions, Pakistan