Development of pharmacy education programmes in sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping review

This scoping review aimed to explore the development, implementation, and evaluation of pharmacy education programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. Objectives include: legislative frameworks governing pharmacy education programmescompetency standards underpinning pharmacy practiceaccreditation standards applied to pharmacy education programmesmodels of pharmacy education and training.

Records describing pharmacy education programmes originating from the 49 countries within sub-Saharan Africa were considered for inclusion. Database searches of CINAHL, Embase, MEDLINE (EBSCO) were undertaken and supplemented by grey literature. Search strings were developed using the JBI's population, concept, context framework. Records were independently screened for inclusion by two reviewers. Findings were presented using narrative summaries, tables, and figures.

One hundred thirty-nine eligible records were retrieved. Most records originated from South Africa (n = 30) and Nigeria (n = 23). Thirty-one countries out of 49 (63%) returned zero country-specific results. Types of evidence sources varied across included records, with reviews (n = 25, 18%), cross-sectional studies (n = 22, 16%), and reports (n = 20, 14%) most prominent. Legislative frameworks governing pharmacy education were described by 35 records (25%), competency standards by 49 records (35%), accreditation standards by 44 records (32%), and models of pharmacy education and training by 136 records (98%).

This review provides insight into the development, implementation, and evaluation of pharmacy education across sub-Saharan Africa. Models of pharmacy education and training are well described, particularly for South Africa and Nigeria. However, there are significant information gaps in the literature for 31 countries. Future research should focus on investigating pharmacy education in sub-Saharan Africa not captured by records within this review.