Abstract

Dr. Onah Otor Paul* and Siyaka Abdulateef

ABSTRACT

Background: Pharmacy practice now emphasizes multi-disciplinary collaborative approach to the provision of pharmaceutical care. This requires acquiring right attitudes so as to be able to collaborate with members of other professionals involved in patient care. Benefits of physician – pharmacist’ collaboration are well documented in countries where integration of interprofessional practice is well established. Attitude to collaborative practice among health professionals is reported to be formed well before graduation. Assessment of attitude of healthcare students towards teamwork can be useful indicator of post-graduation collaborative practice. Aim: The study aims to assess attitudes of healthcare students towards pharmacist – physician collaborative practice. Methods: Scale of attitudes towards pharmacist – physician collaboration [SATP2C] questionnaire was administered to fourth and fifth year pharmacy and medical students. Data was analyzed using SPSS 21 for descriptive and inferential statistics. Factor analysis was used to identify items that influenced attitudes. One way ANOVA with post Hoc test and Students t test were used to know if demographic variables significantly influenced attitudes. Results/Discussion: Medical students showed less positive attitudes towards collaboration compared to pharmacy students. Influence of demographic variables showed that final year medical students were less willing to collaborate with pharmacists compared to other categories of students. This result is consistent with many previous studies and it reveals that current model of training healthcare professionals is not adequate to engender teamwork post-graduation. Conclusion: Attitudes to collaborative practice is yet to significantly change among medical students, so it’s important to provide opportunities for interaction with students of allied professions early in the course of medical training if collaborative attitude is to change.