Mental Health Care Education and Training in Pharmacy Programs in Arabic-Speaking Countries

This study aimed to assess how entry-level pharmacy programs in Arab countries prepare graduates to provide mental health care, specifically examining the didactic curricula and experiential training in psychiatry in bachelor and PharmD programs.

An electronic survey was sent to all entry-level pharmacy programs in the 22 Arab countries asking to report on the 2021-2022 academic year. The survey assessed teaching and learning (eg, psychiatric diseases taught and extent of the coverage; contact hours dedicated to psychiatric therapeutics, pharmacology, and medicinal chemistry), experiential training in psychiatry and its challenges, and graduates' preparedness to provide mental health. A descriptive analysis of the data was undertaken, and data were reported for bachelor and PharmD programs separately.

Overall, 35 pharmacy programs completed the survey. All PharmD programs and 80% of bachelor programs covered psychiatric therapeutics, and most contact hours were dedicated to pharmacology, followed by psychiatric therapeutics and medicinal chemistry. Over half of the faculty considered that depression and anxiety disorders were covered sufficiently, and 56.2% of programs did not offer experiential training in psychiatry. Common challenges in psychiatry experiential training included a lack of sites and qualified preceptors. Overall, 26.4% of faculty positively rated graduates' preparedness to provide mental health care. Graduates who completed experiential training in psychiatry and PharmD graduates were rated higher.

Pharmaceutical education in Arab countries could be improved by enhancing the teaching and assessment of mental health topics and expanding psychiatry experiential training. Such changes would improve entry-level pharmacists' competencies in mental health care provision.