Job Preferences Of Undergraduate Pharmacy Students In China

Human resources for health are the providers of health services and an important force to achieve the goal of universal health.Pharmacists are an important part of the health workforce and play a vital role in providing drug knowledge,guiding rational clinical drug use and providing pharmaceutical services.In China,pharmaceutical human resources are in short supply,distributed unevenly in urban and rural areas,and the quality level is low,which can’t meet the needs of the whole society for pharmaceutical care.Undergraduate pharmacy students are potential pharmaceutical human resources.Understanding the job preference of undergraduate pharmacy students plays an important role in improving the quality level of pharmacy manpower and optimizing the allocation of pharmaceutical human resources in China.Discrete choice experiment is a quantitative method to measure resp ondents’preferences,which has been widely used in the field of medicine and health.This study aims to quantitatively measure the job preference of undergraduate pharmacy students in China using discrete choice experiment.By building a database of key attributes and levels that influence undergraduate pharmacy students’ job preference,and to quantitatively analyze the factors that influence undergraduate pharmacy students’ job choice and the relative importance of each factor in a multi-dimensional and multi-level manner according to the characteristics and applicable conditions of various discrete choice models,so as to provide reference for formulating and improving pharmaceutical human resource attraction and retention policies and promoting the rational allocation of pharmaceutical human resources in China.In this study,617 undergraduate pharmacy students from Shandong University,Henan University,Xi’an Jiaotong University,Hebei Medical University,China Pharmaceutical University and Ningxia Medical University were investigated.The core content mainly includes three aspects.Firstly,build a database of key attributes and levels.Determine 6 attributes including monthly income,work location,work unit,management style,training opportunities and years to promotion and their corresponding levels based on literature review and qualitative methods.Secondly,experimental design.Ngene software was used to realize D-efficiency design,and a total of 24 choice sets were generated.The 24 choice sets were evenly divided into two blocks to reduce the burden of respondents.The third choice set was repeatedly set as the 13th to test the consistency of respondents’ responses.Thirdly,data analysis and interpretation.The Conditional logit model was used to analyze sensitivity and compare the encoding methods in preference interpretation.Based on the characteristics of Latent class model,the heterogeneity of preference was analyzed by regression coefficient βvalue,attribute relative importance score,willingness to pay and policy simulation analysis.A Random parameter logit model was used for sub-group analysis to explore the effect of sociodemographic characteristics on job preference.A total of 581 respondents completed the questionnaire,with an effective sample rate of 94.2%.The average age was 22.3 years old.More than 70%were women.In terms of career planning,more than 80%of respondents were willing to engage in pharmaceutical related work or further their studies,and most of them wanted to work in public institutions and foreign-funded pharmaceutical enterprises.Conditional logit model showed that there was no difference between the preferences of 581 valid samples and the 500 samples who pass the consistency test,and dummy coding is more brief in preference interpretation.The Latent class model showed that,except for management style,attributes included in the study were statistically significant.undergraduate pharmacy students preferred jobs with high monthly income,working location in city,public institution,more training opportunities and shorter years to promotion.The relative importance score showed that monthly income and work location were the two most important attributes,so the two classes were named "economic orientation" and "location preference" respectively.Willingness to pay showed that respondents with "location preference" were willing to pay 3821 yuan to work in cities,and were willing to pay more than those with "economic orientation" in terms of training opportunities,work unit,and years to promotion.The simulation policy analysis showed that the single non-economic factor had no significant effect.The monthly income of 6000 yuan,public institution,sufficient training opportunities,2 years to promotion,the probability of choosing this job was about 90%.The results of Random parameter logit model showed that respondents born in cities or with a relatively high annual income preferred to work in cities,women preferred public institutions,respondents from eastern schools preferred training opportunities over those from central and western schools.The main conclusions are as follows:Except for management style,other attributes levels included in the study were statistically significant for respondents;Monthly income and work location were the most important attributes,while work unit,training opportunities and years to promotion were less important;The respondents of different social demographic characteristics had preference heterogeneity;The incentive mode of "economic incentive as the guidance,non-economic incentive as the supplement" is more conducive to the rational allocation of pharmaceutical human resources.Based on the above conclusions,the suggestions are following:(1)For government,it is more attractive for pharmacy students to establish an incentive system of "economic incentive as the guidance,non-economic incentive as the supplement" for undergraduate pharmacy students,which can alleviate the problem of employment in some degree.(2)From society,employers should appropriately increase the salary,and provide adequate training opportunities and reasonable promotion mechanisms to attract and retain pharmaceutical talents.(3)For colleges,they should provide reasonable employment guidance for students,pay attention to the employment dynamics of graduates in a timely manner,and conduct a return visit survey in order to adjust the enrollment plan and professional curriculum of pharmacy.