Pharmacists' Attitudes, Perceptions, and Preferences Regarding Continuing Education: Cross-Sectional Study in Vietnam

The evolution of the health care landscape necessitates expanding the roles of pharmacists in patient-centered care to encompass direct patient management, collaborative practice, and preventive service. These responsibilities can be fulfilled by pharmacists through ongoing professional development, in which continuing education (CE) is instrumental to career advancement and improved patient care.

This cross-sectional study aimed to assess Vietnamese pharmacists' attitudes, perceptions, and preferences regarding CE.

Participants were recruited via convenience and snowball sampling, after which a validated 42-item questionnaire was administered to them through online and offline channels from December 2024 to February 2025. The data were examined via descriptive statistical analysis using SPSS (version 26.0; IBM Corp). The associations between participant characteristics and attitudinal or perception scores (P<.05) were assessed using 1-way ANOVA with 1000 bootstrap samples.

This study involved 508 pharmacists, most of whom were aged 25 to 30 years (n=197, 38.8%), and the majority held university degrees (n=360, 70.9%). Their mean attitudinal score was 44.4 (SD 5.5), reflecting generally positive attitudes toward CE. However, significant differences in mean attitudinal scores were found across groups categorized by education level, job position, and frequency of overtime (P<.05). More than half of the participants derived good scores on their perceptions of CE, with their preferred CE formats including computer- and internet-based learning, as well as the use of medical search engines. Finally, the pharmacists expressed a strong preference for CE topics focusing on skill development.

The Vietnamese pharmacists exhibited positive attitudes toward CE, favoring flexible learning formats and practical topics. These insights can inform the efforts of policymakers and educators to enhance CE accessibility, improve pharmacists' competencies, and, ultimately, advance patient care.