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Eritrean pharmacists’ job satisfaction and their attitude to re-professionalize pharmacy in to pharmaceutical care

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Abstract

Objective Job satisfaction is a very important contributing factor for a person’s productivity and motivation. Naturally, if people are not satisfied with what they practice, they will probably need to change or reshape their way of practice at a certain period in time. Pharmacists are not exception to this principle and have been observed to re-professionalize pharmacy in to clinical and/or pharmaceutical care in many parts of the world. Thus, this survey aims to investigate the Eritrean pharmacists’ current level of job satisfaction and their views on re-professionalization of pharmacy. Method A cross-sectional survey was conducted among all Eritrean pharmacists who reside inside Eritrea. Main outcome measures Opinion of pharmacists about job satisfaction and re-professionalization of pharmacy into pharmaceutical care. Results Out of the 95 questionnaires distributed 86 were completed and returned giving a response rate of 90.5 %. Nearly three fourth of the respondents (71 %) have chosen pharmacy as their ever profession and they want to encourage their children or their close relatives to pursue it as a career. Sixty four percent of the pharmacists are either partially or fully unsatisfied to spend the remainder of their working life in a job like their current one and this has a strong statistical association with less years of experience (p = 0.007) and place of work of the younger pharmacists (p = 0.008). Majority of the study participants (86 %) believe there is a great mismatch between pharmacists’ level of education and level of practice in the work area. This was significant with lower age (p = 0.002), less years of experience (p = 0.006) and later year of admission to university (p = 0.000). Ninety five percent of the pharmacists perceive that the current role of the Eritrean pharmacists needs to be redefined and re-oriented. Conclusion Although the Eritrean pharmacists are proud to be pharmacy professionals, they want to redefine and reorient their current role into pharmaceutical care.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to all pharmacists who participated in the study. We would like to thank pharmacists Semere Ghebregiorgis and Kifle Aforki, as well as Mr. Andom Yohannes for reviewing the first draft of the questionnaire. Many thanks to Dr. Mismay Ghebrehiwet and Mr. Chan Ving Fai for prove-reading the final version of the manuscript. Many thanks also to Mr. Andebrhan Tewelde for his assistance in analysis.

Funding

ERIPA and PHARMACOR Eritrea supported the printing of the questionnaire. No other financial support was received.

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None.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Pharmacy, Asmara College of Health Sciences, Asmara, Eritrea

    Merhawi Teklai Awalom, Abel Fekadu Tesfa & Medhanie Elias Kidane

  2. Pharmacovigillance Centre, Ministry of Health, Asmara, Eritrea

    Mulugeta Russom Ghebremedhin

  3. Nakfa, Eritrea

    Ambesajir Habtemichael Teklesenbet

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  1. Merhawi Teklai Awalom
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  2. Abel Fekadu Tesfa
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  3. Medhanie Elias Kidane
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  4. Mulugeta Russom Ghebremedhin
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  5. Ambesajir Habtemichael Teklesenbet
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Correspondence to Merhawi Teklai Awalom.

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Awalom, M.T., Tesfa, A.F., Kidane, M.E. et al. Eritrean pharmacists’ job satisfaction and their attitude to re-professionalize pharmacy in to pharmaceutical care. Int J Clin Pharm 37, 335–341 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11096-015-0064-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11096-015-0064-9

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