Beliefs and behaviors of professionally engaged pharmacists

To define professional engagement and establish a list of beliefs and behaviors characteristic of professionally engaged pharmacists.

A 4-round online Delphi consensus technique. Round 1: Panelists were asked to identify the beliefs and behaviors characteristic of professionally engaged pharmacists. Investigators then crafted representative statements. Round 2: Panelists agreed with statements as written, agreed with changes, or disagreed. Round 3: Panelists distributed 100 points among the modified belief and behavior statements, reflecting the relative weight and importance of each. Round 4: Panelists rated overall agreement with statements and the definition of professional engagement with the use of a 4-point Likert scale.

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Fifteen pharmacists with a deep interest in and knowledge of professional engagement.

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Consensus statements regarding the beliefs and behaviors characteristic of a professionally engaged pharmacist and a consensus definition of professional engagement.

From 128 submissions regarding beliefs provided by panelists in round 1, 18 statements were crafted and 12 statements achieved consensus. From 72 submissions regarding behaviors provided by panelists in round 1, 15 statements were crafted and 9 statements achieved consensus. Panelists' agreement with each of the final statements achieved a mean score greater than 3.9 on a 4-point Likert scale. Consensus was achieved regarding the definition of professional engagement. The professionally engaged pharmacist "thinks and behaves in ways that positively affect patients' health and advance the profession's values and societal mission."

Professional engagement in pharmacists is composed of cognitive, behavioral, and affective components. This work provides a framework to describe professional engagement and lays the foundation for future scholarly work. The ability to measure professional engagement will allow us to correlate professional engagement with outcomes and design interventions to catalyze increased engagement in the profession.