Pharmacy student professional identity formation: a scoping review

Abstract

Purpose: Transitioning from being pharmacy students to pharmacists is challenging. Students need to reconcile their professional aspirations and what they have learnt with the realities of practice. A smooth transition can be hampered when they are unable to enact the role they have envisaged or if their expectations are not met. These challenges relate to professional identity. A key challenge for pharmacy educators is how best to support the professional identity formation (PIF) of pharmacy students. To assist with this challenge, we conducted a scoping review to identify factors influencing pharmacy students’ PIF and pedagogical strategies to support PIF. Methods: In September 2018, we undertook a scoping review of all contemporary research investigating pharmacy student PIF including all relevant qualitative, quantitative, theoretical, and gray literature. We searched eight databases for the review: MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Embase, Australian Education Index, PubMed, Scopus, and Web...