Gebremariam Esayas Tadesse, Gadisa Diriba Alemayehu
Department of Pharmacy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ambo University, Ambo, Ethiopia.
Adv Med Educ Pract. 2021 Mar 1;12:205-213. doi: 10.2147/AMEP.S297038. eCollection 2021.
Academic research is an essential part of undergraduate Pharmacy education to produce qualified Pharmacists. However, there are no documented studies that examine the nature of undergraduate Pharmacy students' research projects in Ethiopia. Therefore this study aimed to characterize the nature of students' research project conducted for a bachelor of Pharmacy degree program at Ambo University, Ethiopia.
A cross-sectional, retrospective review using data extraction form was conducted on 279 research reports of undergraduate Pharmacy students at Ambo University from 2013/14 to 2018/2019. The National Harmonized Modular Curriculum program for the Bachelor of Pharmacy degree in Ethiopia was used as a framework to group research projects by research topics and domains. Students' profile (gender, program), supervisors profile, research types and topics, a domain of pharmacy curriculum, study setting, study design, target population, data collection strategy and techniques, and therapeutic classes of medicines for each project were extracted to see the characteristics of students' research project. Data were entered and analyzed using Microsoft Excel and SPSS version 25. Descriptive statistics were used to present the data.
From 279 Pharmacy undergraduate students' research projects, 83.9% were conducted by male students and 64.1% were by regular program students. Two hundred fifty (89.6%) of the projects were surveys. Slightly less than half (49.8%) of the research projects were clinical researches. One hundred twenty-six (45.2%) of the research projects were focused on the pharmaceutical care domain followed by dispensing (22.6%) and research and education domain (10%). Out of the 250 survey research projects, the majority 226 (90.4%) of them were used cross-sectional study design, 205 (82%) were conducted at hospitals and 187 (74.8%) were done on the clinical population.
The study showed that the majority of the abstracted projects were surveyed type quantitative clinical researches focused on the Pharmaceutical care domain and takes place at hospitals affiliated with the University. On the contrary, a lower proportion of the research projects were laboratory-based researches, focused on Pharmaceuticals manufacturing, drug information service, regulation, and supply chain management domains, and takes place at community Pharmacy and educational institutions. Thus, it is highly recommended the University has to devise a system for expansion of the study settings other than its affiliated hospitals, and the research topics would encompass all areas and domains of Pharmacy Practice and Pharmaceutical sciences.
学术研究是本科药学教育培养合格药剂师的重要组成部分。然而，在埃塞俄比亚，尚无文献研究考察本科药学专业学生研究项目的性质。因此，本研究旨在描述埃塞俄比亚安博大学药学学士学位项目学生开展的研究项目的性质。
采用数据提取表，对安博大学2013/14至2018/2019年本科药学专业学生的279份研究报告进行横断面回顾性研究。以埃塞俄比亚药学学士学位国家统一模块化课程计划为框架，按研究主题和领域对研究项目进行分组。提取学生信息（性别、课程）、导师信息、研究类型和主题、药学课程领域、研究地点、研究设计、目标人群、数据收集策略和技术，以及每个项目的药物治疗类别，以了解学生研究项目的特点。使用Microsoft Excel和SPSS 25版录入和分析数据。采用描述性统计呈现数据。
在279项药学本科学生研究项目中，83.9%由男生开展，64.1%由常规课程学生开展。其中250项（89.6%）项目为调查研究。略少于一半（49.8%）的研究项目为临床研究。126项（45.2%）研究项目聚焦于药学服务领域，其次是调配（22.6%）和研究与教育领域（10%）。在250项调查研究项目中，大多数226项（90.4%）采用横断面研究设计，205项（82%）在医院开展，187项（74.8%）针对临床人群。
研究表明，大多数提取的项目是调查型定量临床研究，聚焦于药学服务领域，在大学附属医院开展。相反，较低比例的研究项目是基于实验室的研究，聚焦于药品生产、药物信息服务、监管和供应链管理领域，在社区药房和教育机构开展。因此，强烈建议该大学制定一个系统，扩大除附属医院以外的研究地点，并且研究主题应涵盖药学实践和药学科学的所有领域。
