Integrating cultural diversity in pharmaceutical education in Lithuania: a pre-post survey-based evaluation

A two-week elective course on diversity competences within the pharmaceutical curriculum at the Medical Faculty of Vilnius University was designed and implemented.

This study aimed to evaluate the changes in the students' knowledge of diversity concepts, their attitudes towards ethnic minorities, and their understanding of diversity-sensitive healthcare after the course.

A pre-post longitudinal survey was conducted. Students evaluated their knowledge of diversity concepts on a scale from 1 to 10. Attitudes were measured with a validated instrument assessing physicians' opinions about healthcare for ethnic minorities, modified for the context of pharmaceutical care. Understanding of diversity-sensitive care was explored using an open-ended question.

In 2023 and 2024, 40 students attended the course. Most were female, aged 22 or 23, having parents with university-level education; all were born in Lithuania. The before-after increase in knowledge scores was most pronounced and significant for those diversity concepts that initially scored the lowest, i.e. intersectionality, implicit bias, reflexivity, and diversity theory. Both before and after the course, the highest scores were for the attitude showing positive perception of minority patients, while the perception that minority patients prefer a paternalistic communication style had the lowest scores. Already before the course, the students, to some extent, were knowledgeable about the diversity-sensitive healthcare.

The study indicates that a two-week course on diversity competence within the university pharmacy curriculum improves student knowledge of diversity concepts. These results may encourage educational management of pharmaceutical programs in other European universities to implement diversity competence training.