Structured summary Introduction: Mental health is of great importance in our life for every one of us. Whether it be in the period of adolescence, studying at college or acting as a pharmacist. It is therefore necessary that we try to fix it or restore the mental balance if it is disturbed. Nowadays, the number of students who suffer from certain mental disorders is growing, it is needed that we do not underestimate the influence of psychological aspects and mental balance. Aim: The aim of this work is to find out how the students of the second year in the field of pharmacy with mental health are aware of psychopathological disorders (depression, anxiety, aggressive behaviour or somatization) what is their life satisfaction and how good their life seems to them. The partial aim was to determine whether the results vary according to gender, who they live with, where they live, whether they have a health problem that effects their lives and whether they are believers or not. Method: In our case we chose the online questionnaire method that assessed the presence of mental disorder (SCL-90) life satisfaction (SWLS) and quality of life (SOS- 10). Questionaires were filled in by students during the subject of Health Psychology in 2012. Subsequently, the data was statistically evaluated using Microsoft Office 365...

Class of 2011 Abstract / OBJECTIVES: To assess the effectiveness of the institutional objectives for the Introductory to Pharmacy Practice Experience (IPPE) course at the University of Arizona, College of Pharmacy. METHODS: This observational study included 83 first-year PharmD students, of which 36 were enrolled in the IPPE course during the Spring 2009 semester. At the beginning and end of the semester, each student was given a multiple-choice test with questions related to the institutional objectives for the IPPE course. At the end of the semester, the tests were scored and the pre- and post-tests were matched for each student. RESULTS: No significant difference was found between the pre- and post-test scores, although most students had an improved score on the post-test. Of the students in IPPE, test scores were divided based on the type of practice site attended. No difference was found for the pre- or post-test scores between the different practice sites (p>0.1 for all comparisons) and a medium impact was found between community and hospital practice settings (affect size = 0.49). CONCLUSION: It was concluded that although student competencies improved over the course of the semester, participation in the IPPE course during the first-year of pharmacy school did not significantly contribute to this improvement.

Class of 2008 Abstract / Objectives: The APhA Pathway Program provides Pharm.D. candidates with direction in refining their career choices. The purpose of this study was to collect data about pharmacy student perspectives regarding which year of pharmacy school is the optimal time for students to complete the APhA Career Pathways Briefing Document. Methods: The subjects of the study were Pharm.D. candidates currently enrolled in their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd year of didactic courses at the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy. Students were provided a copy of the Pathway Program Briefing Document and asked to complete a 19-item questionnaire regarding their opinions about this information. The independent variable in the study was the class year. The dependent variable was the usefulness of the Pathway Program. Results: The overall response rate was 121 of 219 (55%) distributed questionnaires. Baseline characteristics of the three classes were similar. Statistically significant differences in responses existed between the 1st and 3rd year classes. The first year pharmacy students found the Pathway Program the most useful. Students with less work experience found the Pathway Program more useful than students with more work experience. Conclusions: First year pharmacy students had the strongest level of agreement that the Pathway Program was a useful tool. Students with less pharmacy work experience found the Pathway Program more useful than students with more extensive work experience. Based on these results, it appears that the first year of pharmacy school is the most appropriate time to utilize the program.

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Purpose: It aimed at testing the applicability of a validated team-based learning student assessment instrument (TBL-SAI) to assess United Kingdom (UK) pharmacy students’ attitude toward team-based learning. Methods: TBL-SAI, consisting of 33 items, was administered to undergraduate pharmacy students from two schools of pharmacy each at University of Wolverhampton and University of Bradford that utilized TBL as a primary instructional method across credit bearing modules. Validity and reliability tests were conducted on the data, along with comparisons between the two schools. Results: Students’ response rate was 80.0% (138/173) in completion of the instrument. Overall, the instrument demonstrated validity and reliability when used with pharmacy students. Sub-analysis between schools of pharmacy did, however, show that four items from Wolverhampton data, had factor loadings of less than 0.40. No item in the Bradford data had factor loadings less than 0.40. Cronbach’s alpha score was reliable at 0.897 for the total instrument: Wolverhampton, 0.793 and Bradford, 0.902. Students showed preference to TBL, with Bradford’s scores being statistically higher (P < 0.005). Conclusion: This validated instrument has demonstrated reliability and validity when used with pharmacy students. Furthermore students at both schools preferred TBL compared to traditional teaching.

<p>Tuberculosis (TB) is a major contributor to the disease burden in developing countries resulting in deaths of approximately 2 million people a year. South Africa (SA) has one of the highest annual&nbsp / TB incidences with an estimate of 558 per 100 000 population (2003) and the situation shows no sign of abating. TB remains the most common opportunistic infection and cause of death&nbsp / amongst HIV- infected patients. Both TB and HIV treatment depend exclusively on multi-drug regimens that require close monitoring among health care professionals. With increasing workload&nbsp / due to staff shortage and high patient load, the quality of care in nurse-led primary care clinics maybe compromised. Existing clinic staff may overlook drug-drug interactions, side effects and may&nbsp / not be aware of the consequences when a formulation is modified during multi-drug therapy administration. As the custodian of medicines, pharmacists are ideally placed to monitor therapy.&nbsp / Clinicbased training programmes which are offered to nurses provide an opportunity to work alongside clinic staff and engage in patient-centered care where the pharmacotherapeutic outcome of TB and HIV drug regimens could be closely monitored. </p>

Class of 2017 Abstract / Objectives: To determine if the use of RxSkills effectively improves student scores on the North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination (NAPLEX)-based questions among third and fourth-year pharmacy students at the University of Arizona (UA) College of Pharmacy. Methods: This is a pre-post interventional study using a survey of volunteer students from the classes of 2016 and 2017 at the UA College of Pharmacy. An email calling for volunteers was sent using the listserv to students providing information regarding the study. Once the pre-test was completed, instructions for downloading the mobile application were sent to the students. After six weeks of RxSkills use, a link to the post-test was sent to the students for completion. Student scores on the NAPLEX-based questions, use of the application (frequency and duration) and helpfulness, and demographic data were collected. Results: The number of participants in the study from each class was similar with 15 students from the Class of 2016 (52%) and 14 from the Class of 2017 (48%). There was no correlation between how often RxSkills was used and improvement in scores. Overall, student score on the NAPLEX-based questions were significantly improved post-RxSkills use (mean 10.48, SD 2.49) compared to pre-RxSkills use (mean 9.68, SD 2.24) with a p-value of 0.03. Conclusions: The use of RxSkills resulted in an improvement in student scores on the NAPLEX-based questions, indicating its usefulness in studying for the NAPLEX. Students would benefit from using the application when studying for this exam.

This thesis explores the notion of professionalism in pharmacy from a pharmacy education viewpoint, specifically the process of becoming a ‘professional’ as experienced by pharmacy students as they undertake the educational programme required for registration as a pharmacist. Registration as a pharmacist is commonly understood as an end-point in becoming a professional, portraying the educational programme as an acquisitional endeavour where upon completion, an individual has become a professional. Such understandings are problematic as they disguise the complex, uncertain and individual journeys that students experience as they undertake an educational programme that portrays becoming a professional as a static, linear process rather than an on-going negotiation and emergence of professional selves. This study adopts a social constructionist framework to explore the experiences of pharmacy students at one Higher Education Institution (HEI) in the United Kingdom. Rejecting positivistic notions of control, prediction and generalisability this study uses an interpretive approach to the generation and analysis of interview data to gain understandings of the individual and local experiences of pharmacy students at this particular HEI. Interviews were conducted with nineteen students who prepared a repertory grid to describe their own constructions of an ‘ideal’ pharmacist and the grids were used as a catalyst for discussion in individual participant interviews. Using the repertory grid approach afforded an insight into pharmacy students’ experiences of ‘becoming’ a pharmacist, revealing themes and patterns emerging from analysis of student narratives. Drawing on Actor Network Theory (ANT) as a theoretical lens to explore these themes and patterns from a socio-material perspective, the micro-interactions and exchanges that emerged from these networks exposed the innumerable realisations of ‘becoming’ a pharmacist. Tracing some of these networks in this thesis revealed a number of powerful actors in these micro-interactions and exchanges. When considered individually these actors appear inconsequential, however, collectively these micro-interactions and exchanges reveal the highly individualised, complex and uncertain experience of ‘becoming’ a pharmacist. In coming together these non-human and human actors emerge as a driving force in the emergence of student identities as a pharmacist. This study makes an original contribution to pharmacy education by revealing the uncertainty that pharmacy students experience in ‘becoming’ a pharmacist. It identifies that this experience is highly individualised and personal to each student and argues for embracing uncertainty as a helpful and essential experience of ‘becoming’ a pharmacist.

Objectives: To determine if there is a relationship between the number of self-testing attempts and subsequent exam grade in a pharmacy course. Method: A total of 1,342 multiple choice questions were developed for pharmacy students to self-test for a pathophysiology course. Prior to each examination, students were allowed to take online quizzes which were randomly generated and related to the exam content. Quizzes were scored immediately, and students were shown the incorrect questions along with all answer choices. A matrix of intercorrelations and repeated measures ANOVA, with post hoc tests, was generated using PASW Statistics Version 19 (IBM, Armonk, NY) to evaluate all variables. Results: 77 of 79 students (97.5%) participated, resulting in a total of 7,042 attempts. Non-participants were assigned a zero. There were variations in both the average practice attempts (18 – 30) and subsequent exam grade (82 – 90) on the 4 exams. However, a significant correlation (p ≤ 0.05) existed between number of attempts and each exam grade (R = 0.478, 0.426, 0.385, and 0.218). For each exam, students were stratified into the upper and lower 50%, according to the number of self-test attempts. On all four exams the lower 50%, based solely on attempts, scored significantly lower (p ≤ 0.05) on the subsequent exam based on a two group T-test. Implications: Although self-testing strategies increase recall ability, this strategy is uncommon in pharmacy education. These results suggest that the number of self-testing attempts improves subsequent exam grade, regardless of the score for the self tests. Read More: http://www.ajpe.org/doi/full/10.5688/ajpe76599

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