Final-year pharmacy undergraduate students’ career intention and its influencing factors: a questionnaire study in northwest China

BACKGROUND: Career intention is closely related to the distribution of university graduates across sectors in pharmacy-related field. The aim of the study was to describe career intention and identify its influencing factors among final-year pharmacy undergraduate students in China. METHODS: A questionnaire study on demographic characteristics, educational situation, family background, occupational value and career intention was conducted among final-year pharmacy undergraduate students at three universities in northwest China. Exploratory factor analysis was used to identify the constructs of occupational value. Multinominal logistic regression was adopted to analyse the factors influencing career intention. RESULTS: Among the 275 student participants, 62.6% intended to work in public medical institutions (rural: 44.4%; urban: 18.2%), 26.5% aimed to work in the pharmaceutical industry, 6.5% wanted to work in other sectors in the pharmacy-related field, and 4.4% planned to work in other fields. Their gender, father’s education level, monthly household income per capita, whose opinions were considered most during job selection, the self-gratification factor of occupational value, and employment guidance had significant impacts on students’ career intentions. CONCLUSION: In the Chinese background, the career intention of more than half of the undergraduate pharmacy students was to work in public medical institutions. The career intentions of the overall participants were mainly determined by their gender, family background as well as psychological self-gratification, and they could also be influenced by employment guidance. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-020-02342-8.