(94) Leveraging the Pharmacists’ Patient Care Process to Enhance Critical Thinking Among First-Year Student Pharmacists

Objective : To assess the impact of infusion-based critical thinking instruction on critical thinking disposition and skills in first year student pharmacists enrolled in a Pharmacists’ Patient Care Process (PPCP) course.

Methods: A cross-sectional, quasi-experimental, pre-post design was implemented to assess critical thinking disposition and performance on key critical thinking outcomes before and after the implementation of an education intervention. This intervention was composed of intentional critical thinking instruction, coupled with modified team based learning (TBL) activities designed to assess student ability to collect, assess, and communicate self-care therapeutics. A structured questionnaire (including the Critical Thinking Disposition Scale, Rational-Experiential Inventory Scale and key demography), reflective exercises, and critical thinking focused rubric-based performance metrics were used to assess key outcomes. A paired-t test will be used to describe comparisons.

Results: A total of 16 (22.5%) of students enrolled in the course completed the pre-post assessment for inclusion in our analysis. The majority of respondents were female (75%), white/Caucasian (75%) and considering community pharmacy practice (50%) upon graduation. Student performance on critical thinking learning outcomes increased post intervention (p=0.008). Critical thinking disposition changed over the course of the intervention suggesting a tendency towards systematically analyzing problems (p=0.003) and obtaining knowledge through self-directed learning when necessary (p < 0.001).

Conclusions: Implementation of critical thinking infusion-based instruction, within the framework of the PPCP, may provide an opportunity for critical thinking skill and disposition development among student pharmacists. Intentional critical thinking instruction and practice opportunities early in the didactic curriculum may foster enhanced clinical decision making as students progress in their didactic and experiential coursework.