The Characteristics of Senior Projects Conducted by Government - Contracted Pharmacy Students

Abstract

An analysis on 736 senior project abstracts, conducted in academic year 1993-1996 by pharmacy students of six government schools, was performed. There were 2-3 students in each senior project. The majority of the student projects were experimental studies. The relative order of the others were survey> retrospective/prospective > review/database > quasi-experimental studies. The experimental projects were most studied in the pharmacy schools of five universities including Chulalongkorn University (CU), Mahidol University (MU), Chiang Mai University (CMU), Prince of Songkla University (PSU), and Silapakom University (รบ). Whereas the survey projects were most conducted in Khon Kaen University (KKU). The survey and retrospective/prospective projects were most performed in both CU and KKU. The review/database projects were most studied in MU. The quasi-experimental studies, which were least performed, were found in several pharmacy schools except in MU and CMU.

The majority of experimental studies, found in all schools, were related to pharmaceutical products. The biomedical science related projects were found only in the school having preclinical departments. Most of the survey projects were related" to clinical pharmacy and social administrative pharmacy. The retrospective/ prospective projects were emphasized on the clinical pharmacy aspects in the hospital. The review/database projects which continuously declined were performed in relation to pharmacognosy and social administrative pharmacy.

The orders of the studied projects were in pharmaceutics > social administrative pharmacy > pharmacognosy > pharmaceutical chemistry > biomedical science > clinical pharmacy. Most of the studies on pharmaceutics were drug formulations. There were some studies on physicochemistry and quality assurance of drugs. The studies related to social and administrative pharmacy which mostly found in CU and KKU were consumer behavior. Many studies were data collection in private and school drug stores and hospitals. The studied topics were marketing, service, pharmacoeconomics, laws and ethics. The projects related to pharmacognosy were mostly found in MU with lesser found in CU, CMU, and PSU. The majority of these projects were medicinal plant investigations which were phytochemistry, biological test, herbal plant formulation for external uses, database collection and plant tissue culture. Most of the pharmaceutical chemistry projects were analytical chemistry. The biomedical science projects which were most studied in MU and CU were in microbiology and pharmacology. The projects involved single or combine subjects related to pharmaceutical products were found in every school. However, the projects conducted in association with patients were found in CU and KKU more than in the other schools.