Determination of Pharmacists' Opinions about Collegial Solidarity

Colleague solidarity, which emphasizes trust, independent thinking skills, and sharing, enables the problems encountered in the health service delivery to be dealt with effectively. This study aims to identify the current situation regarding colleague solidarity among pharmacists, which is also included in Turkey's pharmacy legislation.

"Colleague Solidarity Scale Among Nurses" was used in this study conducted with the questionnaire technique. The scale comprises of 23 items and was scored using a 5-point Likert scale. In addition, there were three demographic questions and six questions to get information from participants related to collegial solidarity in the questionnaire.

As a result of the exploratory factor analysis (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin: 0.837), three factors reported 51.029% of the total variance. The t-test indicated a significant difference between gender groups only in the negative opinions about solidarity (NOS) factor (p=0.000). Females exhibited more negative thoughts about solidarity. The ANOVA showed a significant difference in the academic solidarity (AS) factor (p=0.007) among the participants' works in community pharmacies and universities. Pharmacists working in universities had higher means in the AS factor. Moreover, the number of working years made significant differences in the emotional solidarity factor (p=0.000) and NOS factor (p=0.002). Additionally, it was found that the average responses in all factors of the participants who thought that they supported their colleagues in need and that solidarity with their colleagues increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic period (p<0.05).

The findings suggest that colleague solidarity among pharmacists should be addressed profoundly as an element specified in legislation and education processes. It is crucial to determine the level of colleague solidarity and improve it using this scale for different practice areas in pharmacy.