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Abstract
Objectives
Competencies refer to the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors individuals develop through education, training, and experience. These competencies can be formulated into a framework to support practitioner development for effective and sustained performance. In the absence of a national framework for pharmacy education and practice in Lebanon, the Order of Pharmacists of Lebanon (OPL, the official association of pharmacists in Lebanon) pioneered the development of a pharmacy competency framework in 2017. This study aimed to validate and assess the specialized competency framework for pharmacists in sales and marketing (SCF-PSM) after updating the framework previously published by the OPL. The secondary objective was to assess, in a pilot survey, the personal characteristics associated with these competencies.
Methods
After validating the content of the specialized competency framework, a survey involving Lebanese pharmacists was performed through a 15-min online questionnaire distributed over social media platforms, groups of pharmacists, and individual pharmacists’ contact numbers.
Key findings
Pharmaceutical knowledge, communication, emergency response, and operation management during emergencies were satisfactory (more than 80/100). Other activities during emergencies, such as patient care and population health interventions and evaluation, research, and dissemination of research outcomes, received a moderate score (75–78/100), similar to legal practice (78/100), teamwork (76/100), and management skills (75/100). The lowest reported confidence was related to professional communication skills (other than communication per se), mainly negotiation, data processing skills, information technology, self-management, and ethical practice (< 75/100). This study reported deficiencies between what is acquired during undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing education on the one hand and the competency framework suggested by the OPL on the other hand, showing a mismatch between the competencies of working pharmacists acquired during education and the market needs.
Conclusions
This study validated a competency framework for pharmacists in sales and marketing and explored the current gaps in self-reported competencies. It also identified areas necessitating reinforcement to optimize professional practice and underscored the need for improvement in undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing professional education.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40545-023-00638-w.
The original version of this article was revised: the given and family names of each author were transposed.
A correction to this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40545-023-00647-9.
Copyright comment
corrected publication 2023
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40545-023-00638-w.
The original version of this article was revised: the given and family names of each author were transposed.
A correction to this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40545-023-00647-9.
Copyright comment
corrected publication 2023
Acknowledgements
Not applicable. We, as authors of this research paper, confirm we have adhered to the ICMJE definition of authorship, and that we have included on the Title Page a brief description of all contributions to the manuscript. We have complete access to the study data that support the publication.
Author contributions
JN Author who collected data, analyzed and interpreted it, put a draft of the work, gave her final approval of the version to be published and agreed to be accountable for its all aspects in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. AH Author who designed the questionnaire; revised the work critically for important intellectual content; gave her final approval of the version to be published and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. IK Author who designed the questionnaire; revised the work critically for important intellectual content; gave her final approval of the version to be published and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. HS Author who designed the questionnaire; revised the work critically for important intellectual content; gave her final approval of the version to be published and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. MA Author who designed the questionnaire; revised the work critically for important intellectual content; gave his final approval of the version to be published and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. RMZ Author who designed the questionnaire; revised the work critically for important intellectual content; gave his final approval of the version to be published and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. CH Author who designed the questionnaire; revised the work critically for important intellectual content; gave her final approval of the version to be published and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. PS Author who contributed to the conception of the work; oversaw its acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data; supervised the drafting of the work, revised it critically for important intellectual content; gave her final approval of the version to be published; and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Funding
Not applicable.
Availability of data and materials
Data are available upon request.
Declarations
Ethics approval and consent to participate
The project received ethical approval from the Lebanese International University Ethics and Research Committee (Approval number: 2020RC-063-LIUSOP). Before enrolling in the survey, participants were required to read and consent to the study objectives and the average expected time to complete the questionnaire. Participation was voluntary, and pharmacists received no incentive in return for their participation. No follow-up was possible as data were collected anonymously. Data were managed and analyzed anonymously.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Supplementary Information
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