evaluation of preceptors and skills achievement by clinical pharmacy clerkship students during their clinical rotations at university of gondar, ethiopia

Sewunet Admasu Belachew, Tadesse Melaku Abegaz, Akshaya Srikanth Bhagavathula, Henok Getachew, Yonas Getaya TeferaClinical Pharmacy Department, University of Gondar, Gondar, EthiopiaAim: To investigate the overall experiences of clinical pharmacy students during their clinicalattachments and to understand the breadth and depth of clinical skills provided by their preceptors.Methods: A cross-sectional study using a self-administered questionnaire containing 34 itemsto obtain feedback from the clerkship students from June to July 2015. Data analysis was performedto calculate mean, standard deviation, percentages, and multiple logistic regression usingStatistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software Version 22. Statistical significancewas set at P<0.01.Results: All 58 clerkship students actively participated in the study, yielding a response rateof 100%. While students ranked their clerkship experience as moderate, >15% remarked thatthey did not receive enough opportunities to hone their pharmaceutical care documentationskills. A relatively high percentage of students (32.8%) strongly agreed that their preceptors hadprovided ample opportunity to discuss the patient problems at the bedside and encouraged themto express their opinions regarding patients’ drug therapeutic issues. This study also revealedthat students’ continuity in developing their therapeutic and disease process knowledge wassignificantly associated with the preceptor’s ability to provide adequate training and orientation(P =0.01), engagement in clinical pharmacy activities (P =0.01), regular review of students’ work(P =0.01), and instruction to students before entering clinical sites (P =0.00).Conclusion: The findings of this study reveal that a majority of the students were moderatelysatisfied with the clinical training program and preceptors need to demonstrate effective pharmaceutical care processes in their clinical sites.Keywords: pharmaceutical care, training, clinical skills