Nirankush Paul, Rajarshi Roy, Sanjib Bhattacharya, Moulisha Biswas

Abstract

It aims to explore the perceptions of pharmacy academics in Libya on social pharmacy education. A qualitative research methodology was adopted in this study. The participants academics, who graduated from pharmacy faculties were teaching at Libyan pharmacy faculties, were interviewed. Based on the content analysis of the interviews, two major themes emerged, which are: the understanding of social pharmacy and the need to include social pharmacy courses in pharmacy education. The majority of the respondents were not familiar with the concept and more than half of those who had no prior knowledge of this term expressed interests in knowing more about it and few of them were unwilling about this notion. Overall, the study reveals a positive perception towards the introduction of social pharmacy into undergraduate curricula. The findings from the pharmacy academics’ evaluation suggest the need to incorporate a similar course in the pharmacy curriculum in Libya, with supportive reasons to believe that social pharmacy will play an even more crucial role in future pharmacy.