Abstract
(1) Background: Many factors may play a role in deciding to opt for pharmacy as a major. However, no previous studies have been conducted in Saudi Arabia to explore these factors. This study aims to identify the potential factors that prompted students to join the pharmacy program. (2) Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire was distributed among undergraduate pharmacy students in Saudi Arabia, addressing areas such as reasons that encourage them to choose pharmacy as a major, and students’ socio-demographic characteristics. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the study variables, and a simple logistic regression analysis was performed to identify the potential factors. (3) Results: A total of 491 students completed the questionnaire. Around 40% of them had chosen to study pharmacy as their first choice. Only gender, current GPA, and reasons related to the pharmacy field were found to have a statistically significant association with students selecting pharmacy as their first choice. (4) Conclusions: This study shows that pharmacy students have a future-oriented outlook and selected pharmacy as their first choice because it will develop them professionally, financially, and intellectually. Educating high school students about the characteristic of pharmacy would help attract more talented students to the pharmacy carrier.
Highlights
By increasing the world population, high demand for healthcare professionals, such as pharmacists, is needed to manage people’s health
The authors sent the questionnaire to pharmacy students at their respective colleges and asked them to share the link with their classmates and other pharmacy students across Saudi Arabia
The participants’ average Grade Point Average (GPA) was 4.28 (±0.61) on a 5-point scale, and 64.15% were enrolled in a pharmacy students (PharmD) program while 35.23% were enrolled in a Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy (BPharm) program
Summary
By increasing the world population, high demand for healthcare professionals, such as pharmacists, is needed to manage people’s health. Organization, in 2010, in developed countries, such as France and the United States (US), there are on average 117 and 93 pharmacists per 100,000, while in developing countries such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia there were only 54 pharmacists per 100,000 people [1]. This indicated the need for more pharmacists to accommodate the increase in the population. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has experienced rapid progress in the profession of pharmacy This is demonstrated by the increasing number of pharmacy colleges and pharmacy graduates. A few years later, the course was introduced at King Faisal
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
