Preliminary Study about Pharmacist Interns’ Expectation of Their Internship Program

Abstract

The aim of pharmacist internship program is to prepare students to be able to practice professionally by providing practical experiences that can improve clinical skills and personal development of students. This study is a preliminary study which aim is to assess the expectations of internship students to their internship program that undertaken in pharmacist professional education. This research is an observational study using a research questionnaire instrument. The questionnaire used for the study was a closed ended questionnaire with statement items developed from the guidelines of the pharmacist internship program of Udayana University. Assessment in the questionnaire using a Likert scale with a score of 1 (lowest) to 4 (highest) The research subjects were pharmacist students who is interning at the community pharmacy, hospital pharmacy, industry, drug and food regulatory board and community health centre. There was a total of 66 intern student who join the research. Pharmacist intern expectations score for the pharmacy internship was 3.12 (high), hospital internship score was 3.12 (high), industry internship score 3.10 (high), drug and food regulatory board and community health centre score 3.10 (high). The study results also showed that pharmacist students had a tendency to have higher expectations in the dimensions of management of drugs and other pharmaceutical supplies compared to clinical practice services dimension. In conclusion, intern students have high expectations of all aspect of their internship programme.