The Resilience of Final-Year Pharmacy Students and Aspects of the Course They Found to Be Resilience-Building.

Background: This work aimed to investigate final year pharmacy students' resilience (as determined by the CD-RISC-25 tool), whether students considered certain aspects of the course to be resilience-building, and the role of the university in developing this attribute. Methods: Following ethical approval and an invitation to participate, data were collected from consenting students at Queen's University Belfast via a pre-piloted paper-based questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were performed. To ascertain significant differences (p < 0.05) by gender, the Welch Two Sample t-test was used for the CD-RISC-25 mean scores and the Mann-Whitney U Test and Chi-squared test for Section B data. Results: The response rate was 80.61% (79/98). The mean CD-RISC-25 score for males was higher (not significantly) than the female mean score (70.39 versus 67.18, p = 0.2355, possible score range 0−100). While 93.67% (74/79) considered the School has a responsibility to develop resilience, <20.00% availed of the free resilience building events. Activities deemed to help build resilience included being able to make mistakes in a safe environment and needing to achieve a high grade to pass assessments. Conclusions: Resilience levels among future pharmacists at Queen's University Belfast should be improved going forward. A strategy, developed in light of conducting this research (from one institution), will now be implemented to enhance the curriculum with regard to resilience building opportunities.

Veganism: Are future pharmacists ready to provide advice?

INTRODUCTION: In addition to advising about diets, nutritional deficiencies, and supplements, pharmacists should be confident discussing medicine-related issues that may arise from people adopting veganism, including checking about animal-derived pharmaceutical product excipients, formulation processes, and determining whether vegan-friendly alternatives exist. Thus, this study aimed to investigate pharmacy students' knowledge and views about veganism. METHODS: Given veganism's increasing popularity and relevance to pharmacy practice, students enrolled in their last year of the undergraduate master of pharmacy degree program at Queen's University Belfast participated in this voluntary study. The questionnaire was given out at an obligatory workshop (only non-identifiable data were requested). Students were scored on veganism knowledge (22 true/false statements) with other analysis about views being largely descriptive in nature. RESULTS: Ninety-two out of 101 (91.1%) completed the questionnaire. Only one reporting being vegan. Mean knowledge score (possible range of 0-22) was 16.59 (±2.43). Only 37% (34/92) reported feeling confident discussing veganism with patients or other healthcare professionals and 40.2% (37/92) deemed they could establish whether a medical product is vegan-friendly. A minority (4.3%) considered they had received adequate training on veganism. A greater proportion of males than females considered that vegans are too forceful with their beliefs (74.2% vs. 51.7%). CONCLUSIONS: This study presents the first description of pharmacy students' knowledge and opinions on veganism (from a single institution only). The reported gap in educational provision and lack of confidence needs to be investigated and addressed to enhance patient-centered care.

What, where and when? Using Google Trends and Google to investigate patient needs and inform pharmacy practice.

OBJECTIVES: The aim was to provide a comprehensive overview (using pertinent examples) of the various ways that Google Trends and Google data could inform pharmacy practice. The objectives were to: examine what type of information people search for in relation to a common class of medicines; ascertain where people are directed to (websites) following an initial search for a medicine or medical condition; and establish information about when they search. METHODS: The methodology differed depending on whether Google Trends or Google was being interrogated, but the search domain was always limited to the United Kingdom. Google Trends was queried, typically for a 5-year time frame, and data downloaded for many search inputs relating to medical conditions (self-treatable and non-self-treatable) and medicines (bought over-the-counter and prescribed). Google was queried and data collected for searches related to 'antibiotics'. KEY FINDINGS: Google Trends revealed a previously unknown seasonality pattern for irritable bowel syndrome. Related searches for 'antibiotics' revealed a high level of interest in the appropriateness of concomitant alcohol consumption and queries about what antibiotics are. Largely, people were being directed to reputable websites following their initial search input about a prescription-only medicine. However, searches for over-the-counter medicines were more likely to lead to commercial domains. CONCLUSIONS: This is one of the first studies to investigate use of Google Trends and Google in a pharmacy-specific context. It is relevant for practice as it could inform marketing strategies, public health policy and help tailor patient advice and counselling.

Topic Analysis of UK Fitness to Practise Cases: What Lessons Can Be Learnt?

Background: Fitness to practise (FtP) impairment (failure of a healthcare professional to demonstrate skills, knowledge, character and/or health required for their job) can compromise patient safety, the profession's reputation, and an individual's career. In the United Kingdom (UK), various healthcare professionals' FtP cases (documents about the panel hearing(s) and outcome(s) relating to the alleged FtP impairment) are publicly available, yet reviewing these to learn lessons may be time-consuming given the number of cases across the professions and amount of text in each. We aimed to demonstrate how machine learning facilitated the examination of such cases (at uni- and multi-professional level), involving UK dental, medical, nursing and pharmacy professionals. Methods: Cases dating from August 2017 to June 2019 were downloaded (577 dental, 481 medical, 2199 nursing and 63 pharmacy) and converted to text files. A topic analysis method (non-negative matrix factorization; machine learning) was employed for data analysis. Results: Identified topics were criminal offences; dishonesty (fraud and theft); drug possession/supply; English language; indemnity insurance; patient care (including incompetence) and personal behavior (aggression, sexual conduct and substance misuse). The most frequently identified topic for dental, medical and nursing professions was patient care whereas for pharmacy, it was criminal offences. Conclusions: While commonalities exist, each has different priorities which professional and educational organizations should strive to address.

A Questionnaire Study to Investigate Stress among Future Pharmacists by Gender and Year Group.

BACKGROUND: This work aimed to ascertain future pharmacists' stressors and stress-coping practices. METHODS: Queens' University Belfast Year 2 and 4 pharmacy students were invited to participate in an ethically approved, pre-piloted questionnaire study. Section A was the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale, Sections B and C related to stressors and stress-coping mechanisms, and Section D gathered non-identifiable demographic information. Data analysis largely took the form of descriptive statistics. RESULTS: A response rate of 94.2% (213/226) was obtained. The mean Perceived Stress Scale score was 19.94 [standard deviation (SD) 6.37], with females having a higher mean score than males (20.55 SD 5.67 versus 18.16 SD 7.42). Common general stressors were career choice, employment opportunities, and finance. Common degree-specific stressors were particular assessments (objective structured clinical examinations and one-off written examinations) and the amount of course material. Popular stress-coping practices included getting emotional support from friends and family and using self-distractions. CONCLUSION: Stress appears to be an issue among these future pharmacists, and potentially more so for females. While the main stressors are unsurprising, this UK data enables comparisons to be made and helps inform support mechanisms within the university.

Associations between Achievement Goal Orientations and Academic Performance Among Students at a U.K. Pharmacy School.

OBJECTIVE: To ascertain goal orientations of pharmacy students and establish whether associations exist between academic performance, gender, or year of study. METHODS: Goal orientations were assessed using a validated questionnaire. Respondents were categorized as high or low performers based on university grades. Associations and statistical significance were ascertained using parametric and nonparametric tests and linear regression, as appropriate. RESULTS: A response rate of 60.7% was obtained. High performers were more likely to be female than male. The highest mean score was for mastery approach; the lowest for work avoidance. The mean score for work avoidance was significantly greater for low performers than for high performers and for males than for females. First-year students were most likely to have top scores in mastery and performance approaches. CONCLUSION: It is encouraging that the highest mean score was for mastery approach orientation, as goal orientation may play a role in academic performance of pharmacy students.