Developing research capacity: Impacts of pre-registrant research training programme for community pharmacy learners.

Abstract

Background: Research demonstrating the impacts of research training is largely derived from hospital pharmacy residency programmes. However, establishing a research capacity in the community pharmacy sector is of equal importance. The authors aim to describe the impact of a pre-registrant pharmacist research training project for learners in a community setting. Method(s): In 2021, pre-registrant pharmacists (interns) completed a yearlong internship in a community pharmacy and enrolled in an extension programme. A core component of the programme was the completion of a self-selected individual longitudinal workplace-related research project. Interns created a research proposal, collected data, and presented their research at a capstone conference event. Project submissions were classified into different methodologies by the research team. Interns were asked to rate their confidence in performing research and the importance of research across a four-point Likert scale via a voluntary anonymous survey. They were also asked to select barriers to completing their project. Result(s): Eighty-two community pharmacy interns completed the programme. The most common project methodology was a cross-sectional survey (73%), followed by a retrospective audit (18%), prospective audit (5%), retrospective cohort study (3%), and pre/post-intervention study (1%). Of the community pharmacy interns who completed the programme, 61% (50/82) completed the survey. Of these, 74% felt somewhat confident undertaking research in the future. The most common barriers were a lack of support/direction (48%), lack of time (42%), and lack of project ideas (36%). Discussion(s): Participants completed a range of community workplace-based research projects and gained confidence in research. Perceived barriers to research, such as lack of support/direction, may be due to the confidence of community pharmacy supervisors. Programmes such as this provide one step to removing such barriers by increasing research skill capacity .