Employment of Students From Pharmaceutical Specialties – A Pilot, Retrospective-Prospective, Longitudinal, Questionnaire Survey in Two Centers in Bulgaria
Article Category: Original Articles
Published Online: Aug 11, 2021
Page range: 62 - 71
Received: Sep 30, 2020
Accepted: Oct 06, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/amb-2021-0025
Keywords
© 2021 K. Gergov et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Aim
To investigate the employment, the desire to work, the work habits and preferences of the students from the pharmaceutical specialties in Bulgaria. Secondary objectives: To analyze the possibilities for employment, to assess its lawfulness, to analyze existing vicious practices, to establish the main problem in fitting together the academic learning process and the work activity.
Materials and methods
This was a pilot, retrospective-prospective, longitudinal survey in two centers. We developed a survey questionnaire containing 28 questions of both the open-ended and closed-ended types. The data collection was done using the “Direct individual poll” method. he target group consisted of 165 students from pharmaceutical specialties – pharmacy students from Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy, Sofia University “Sv. Kliment Ohridski”, and Bachelor-pharmacists from the Medical College, University “Prof. Dr. Assen Zlatarov”, Bourgas. The data were processed with the SPSS software.
Results
The results are presented in two parts: the first part refers to Bachelors of Pharmacy, and the second – to Masters of Pharmacy. In their majority, the pharmacy students work during their academic studies – 86.4%. The main stimulus for starting work is of financial origin. Of all students working, 56.8% were hired on an employment contract, while up to one-third worked without any contract at all. In the case of assistant pharmacists 4 45.3% of the respondents worked, and the majority of the respondents did it for financial reasons (66.7%). 86.2% had a signed employment contract, but 67.9% were insured on the basis of the minimum salary. Most commonly the students were working in the field of their future specialty in the pharmacy network.
Conclusion
The students indicated difficulties in the process of combining their work activity and their studies, a negative attitude to the legal framework and easily discernible negative attitude towards the main field of fulfillment also by the Masters of Pharmacy – working in a pharmacy.