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© Proceedings of the Ruhuna Quality Assurance Sessions 2021 (RUQAS 2021)
st
21 September 2021

Introduction

Pharmacy profession ensures the provision of safe and effective drug therapy to patients (Abrahamsen
et al., 2020; Jacobi et al., 2016). The role of the pharmacist spreads in various settings including

pharmaceutical industry, hospital pharmacy, community pharmacy, drug information services,

marketing, drug regulatory, academia and research (Abu-Gharbieh et al., 2010; Merlin, 2011).
Recently, pharmacy education and profession have taken significant steps globally where they

stretched out in a more patient-centered manner. In the last four decades, the pharmacy profession has
evolved substantially, leading to changes in its role. This urged the necessity for expanding pharmacy

education. There are different types of pharmacy education programmes conducted in Sri Lanka

which include BPharm, BSc Pharmacy, Diploma in Pharmacy and Certificate Course in Pharmacy.
Seven universities offer bachelor’s degree or Bachelor of Science degrees in Pharmacy in Sri Lanka.

Currently, the basic qualification to practice as a pharmacist is a diploma in pharmacy. Internationally,
pharmacy education is developing according to the requirements of the society and studies were

conducted investigating the success of them (Davies et al., 2013). It has been nearly two decades since

pharmacy degree programmes have commenced in Sri Lanka. However, none of these universities
have commenced a postgraduate pharmacy degree yet. Even though there are a considerable number

graduating each year, no published data was found on investigating the perception of graduates of
these degree programs. Thus, there is an urgency for this type of study in Sri Lanka for the

development and standardization of pharmacy education and the profession. Therefore, the objective
of this study was to evaluate the perception of pharmacy graduates on pharmacy degree programs

conducted by three Sri Lankan universities and their job satisfaction following the completion of the

pharmacy degree.

Methodology

Study Design and Setting

This study was a part of an ongoing cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study conducted among all

the pharmacy graduates from Sri Lankan universities where pharmacy degree programmes are
conducted. There are seven universities offering pharmacy degree in Sri Lanka namely University of

Peradeniya (UoP), University of Ruhuna (UoR), University of Sri Jayewardenepura, University of

Colombo, University of Jaffna, Open University of Sri Lanka and Kotelawala Defence University
(KDU). The curricula of all four-year pharmacy degree programs are more or less similar and include

the areas in pharmaceutics, pharmacy practice, pharmacology, pharmacognocy, clinical pharmacy,
pharmacotherapeutics, medicinal chemistry, anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, microbiology,

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