Factors influencing choice of career: A comparative study among medical, dental and pharmacy students in a private university in Malaysia

Abstract

Background: Students choose their careers based on many factors, which vary for every country. Recent advancements in healthcare systems have made pharmacy one of the most pursued professions. Aim: To study the factors that influence students in Malaysia to choose pharmacy as their career. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among first-year medicine, dentistry and pharmacy students in a private university in Malaysia. One-way analysis of variance followed by Tukey’s post-hoc test was used to determine the factors that influenced students’ career choices. Results: There were significant differences among medicine, dentistry and pharmacy students in the mean scores for the dimensions ‘economic status’, ‘personal background’, and ‘work-life balance’ which influenced their career choice. Conclusions: Economic status, personal background and work-life balance were the factors that significantly influenced students to choose pharmacy compared with students’ choice of dentistry and medicine.