Opinion and perceptions of pharmacy students in Universiti Teknologi mara towards the clinical pharmacy specialization / Nur Munirah Rosly

In the coming decades, pharmacists are expected to become more integral within the health care system rather than simply dispensing medication. Pharmacists practice in a variety of areas including retail pharmacies, hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, drug industries, and regulatory agencies. Pharmacists can also specialize in various areas of practice including hematology, oncology, infectious diseases, ambulatory care, nutrition support, drug information, critical care, pediatrics and etc. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the opinion and perceptions of pharmacy students in Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) towards the clinical pharmacy specialization. A self administered questionnaire was randomly distributed to pharmacy students in UiTM from first year students to final year students. The questionnaire consists of three parts which are Part A, B and C. Part A consists of questions related to demographic study. Part B focuses on the perceptions towards specialty certification and Part C is about opinion toward clinical pharmacy specialization. Likert scale was used to evaluate the perception and opinion towards clinical pharmacy specialization. Data from completed and returned questionnaires were recorded and analyzed descriptively by using appropriate statistical analysis. Chi square test was used to compare the perception and opinion of the students between year of study and a p value less than 0.05 was considered as significance difference. Total of 246 respondents was involved in this study. Majority of the students are female (n=l62, 65.9%) and the rest is male students (n=84, 34%). Most of the respondents gave positive responds towards clinical pharmacy specialization. There is significance difference between perception and opinion of students toward clinical pharmacy specialization and year of study.