Why do pharmacists leave the profession? A mixed-method exploratory study.
2021
Background
: Recent New Zealand policy documents aim for pharmacists to be retained
,
and promote the provision of extended clinical
pharmacy services. However, younger pharmacists have expressed dissatisfaction with the profession on informal s
ocial
for a.
Objectives
: To explore the characteristics, and perspectives of pharmacy as a career, of recent Bachelor of Pharmacy (BPharm, four
-
year degree) graduates who have left, or are seriously considering leaving the New Zealand pharmacy profession i
n the near future
and where they have gone, or plan to go.
Methods
: We conducted a cross
-
sectional study with a mixed
-
method explanatory sequential design. An anonymous online survey
among those who completed their pharmacy undergraduate degree (BPharm or
equivalent) in 2003 or later and who had left or who
were seriously considering leaving the New Zealand pharmacy profession in the next five years, was open from 1
st
December 2018 to
1
st
February 2019. Recruitment occurred via University alumni databases,
pharmacy professional organisations, pharmaceutical print
media, social media and word
-
of
-
mouth. Ten semi
-
structured interviews were then conducted with a purposive sample of survey
respondents. Descriptive statistics were generated from the quantitative d
ata and qualitative data were analysed using manifest
content analysis.
Results
: We received 32
7
analysable surveys of which 40.
4
% (n=132) were from those who had already left the New Zealand pharmacy
sector at the time of the data collection and the rest
(
59.6%
n=19
5
) were those working within the sector, but seriously considering
leaving the profession. Reasons most commonly reported for studying pharmacy were having an interest in health and wanting to
work with people. The most common reasons for leavin
g, or wanting to leave, were dissatisfaction with the professional environment,
including inadequate remuneration, and a perceived lack of career pathways
or
promotion opportunities. A wide range of career
destinations were declared, with medicine being mo
st frequently reported.
Conclusions
: Most of the reasons for leaving/considering leaving the profession reported relate to the values and features of the
pharmacy profession such as the professional environment, remuneration and career pathways. These find
ings are consistent with
other studies and may represent a barrier to achieving the aims of recent health policy docum
Keywords:
- Correction
- Source
- Cite
- Save
- Machine Reading By IdeaReader
24
References
0
Citations
NaN
KQI