Evaluation of preceptors and skills achievement by clinical pharmacy clerkship students during their clinical rotations at University of Gondar, Ethiopia

AIM: To investigate the overall experiences of clinical pharmacy students during their clinical attachments 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 items to obtain feedback from the clerkship students from June to July 2015. Data analysis was performed to calculate mean, standard deviation, percentages, and multiple logistic regression using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software Version 22. Statistical significance was set at P<0.01. RESULTS: All 58 clerkship students actively participated in the study, yielding a response rate of 100%. While students ranked their clerkship experience as moderate, >15% remarked that they did not receive enough opportunities to hone their pharmaceutical care documentation skills. A relatively high percentage of students (32.8%) strongly agreed that their preceptors had provided ample opportunity to discuss the patient problems at the bedside and encouraged them to express their opinions regarding patients’ drug therapeutic issues. This study also revealed that students’ continuity in developing their therapeutic and disease process knowledge was significantly 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 moderately satisfied with the clinical training program and preceptors need to demonstrate effective pharmaceutical care processes in their clinical sites.