The global pharmacy workforce: a systematic review of the literature
- PDF / 214,479 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 610 x 792 pts Page_size
- 79 Downloads / 264 Views
BioMed Central
Open Access
Review
The global pharmacy workforce: a systematic review of the literature Nicola Hawthorne and Claire Anderson* Address: Division of Social Research in Medicines and Health, School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK Email: Nicola Hawthorne - [email protected]; Claire Anderson* - [email protected] * Corresponding author
Published: 19 June 2009 Human Resources for Health 2009, 7:48
doi:10.1186/1478-4491-7-48
Received: 22 September 2008 Accepted: 19 June 2009
This article is available from: http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/7/1/48 © 2009 Hawthorne and Anderson; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract The importance of health workforce provision has gained significance and is now considered one of the most pressing issues worldwide, across all health professions. Against this background, the objectives of the work presented here were to systematically explore and identify contemporary issues surrounding expansion of the global pharmacy workforce in order to assist the International Pharmaceutical Federation working group on the workforce. International peer and non-peer-reviewed literature published between January 1998 and February 2008 was analysed. Articles were collated by performing searches of appropriate databases and reference lists of relevant articles; in addition, key informants were contacted. Information that met specific quality standards and pertained to the pharmacy workforce was extracted to matrices and assigned an evidence grade. Sixty-nine papers were identified for inclusion (48 peer reviewed and 21 non-peer-reviewed). Evaluation of evidence revealed the global pharmacy workforce to be composed of increasing numbers of females who were working fewer hours; this decreased their overall full-time equivalent contribution to the workforce, compared to male pharmacists. Distribution of pharmacists was uneven with respect to location (urban/rural, less-developed/more-developed countries) and work sector (private/public). Graduates showed a preference for completing pre-registration training near where they studied as an undergraduate; this was of considerable importance to rural areas. Increases in the number of pharmacy student enrolments and pharmacy schools occurred alongside an expansion in the number and roles of pharmacy technicians. Increased international awareness and support existed for the certification, registration and regulation of pharmacy technicians and accreditation of training courses. The most common factors adding to the demand for pharmacists were increased feminization, clinical governance measures, complexity of medication therapy and increased prescriptions. To maintain and expand the future pharmacy workforce, increa
Data Loading...
