An investigation of final year pharmacy students' moral reasoning ability, and their views on professionalism and fitness to practice panel determinations: A questionnaire study.

BACKGROUND AND
PURPOSE: The aim was to establish pharmacy students' moral reasoning ability and obtain their views on professionalism and fitness to practice (FtP) determinations involving pharmacists. EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY AND
SETTING: Following ethical approval and piloting, final year pharmacy students at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) (n=119) were invited to participate in a questionnaire study. Section A was a validated moral reasoning assessment tool [Defining Issues Test (DIT2); five moral dilemmas], Section B was FtP cases and professionalism. Distribution occurred at a compulsory class. DIT2 data were scored by the University of Alabama. Descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests were used with significance level set at 0.05 a priori.
FINDINGS: The response rate was 94.1% (112/119) and the 'DIT2 P score mean' (postconventional schema) was 25.21±14.10. Almost all [(98.2% (110/112)] fully understood the term "professionalism" and 83.9% (94/112) considered it reasonable for a professional code to apply always (within university and out socializing). Differences in opinions existed depending on what the FtP case related to. Students were significantly more likely to consider a 12-month suspension 'very lenient' or 'lenient' for a pharmacist's personal use of illicit drugs compared with theft of money/cosmetics (42.0% versus 64.3%; p=0.031). There were no significant differences between male and female responses/scores and no strong correlations between DIT2 scores and FtP/professionalism responses. DISCUSSION AND
SUMMARY: Pharmacy students appeared to understand professionalism and accepted being bound by a code. A level of discrimination between the FtP cases was evident. Moral reasoning ability was lower than expected for future healthcare professionals (see manuscript) requiring attention.