Pediatric pharmacotherapy in the PharmD curriculum: Course design and student self-assessment of learning outcomes achievement

BackgroundThe typical pharmacy school provides limited opportunities for focused pediatric pharmacotherapy discussions. This finding served as the impetus for development of an elective course on pediatric pharmacotherapy. The purpose of this study was to describe course design and evaluate students’ self-assessment of learning outcome achievement in a pediatric pharmacotherapy course.MethodsThirty second-year pharmacy students were enrolled in a ten-week pediatric pharmacotherapy elective course. This course integrated numerous teaching strategies and provided several opportunities for formative and summative feedback. Students completed a pre- and post-course survey consisting of 20 items. Pre- and post-course surveys were compared to evaluate changes in student self-assessments of learning achievement following this course.ResultsTwenty-nine and 27 students responded to the pre- and post-course survey, respectively. There was a significant improvement in post-survey results for all items that examined students’ self-assessment of competency in course learning outcomes (p ≤ 0.036).ConclusionsFollowing completion of a pediatric pharmacotherapy course, significant improvements were observed in students’ self-assessment of learning outcome achievement. The course design appeared to have facilitated these improvements. Since this course was an elective offering, additional means of educating pharmacy students on the care of pediatric patients may need to be considered.