ASSESSMENT OF THE REASONS’ IMPORTANCE OF FUTURE PROFESSION CHOICE BY PHARMACY STUDENTS

The article deals with the results study of the influence of factors on the choice of the profession of a pharmacist based on a survey of future pharmacists. The results have been presented from the most important to the least important reasons for admission to the Pharmaceutical Faculty. In addition to a general assessment of the situation at the Pharmacy Faculty, a comparison of the results for the intramural and extramural students has been carried out. The research was conducted during 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 academic years based on the pharmaceutical faculties of the National Pirogov Memorial University, Vinnytsya and Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University, Ukraine. The study comprised 416 first-year students (206 intramural and 210 extramural students). Students on eleven-point scales from 0 points (unimportant reason) to 10 points (the main reason) evaluated the quantitative sign «force of influence». During the data processing, the average score for the importance of each reason for the professional choice of applicants was calculated. Because of the distribution of points' frequencies for each of the reasons, their divi-sion into importance level has been made: very important reasons, quite important reasons, reasons of moderate importance and unimportant reasons. The factor “I want to get higher education” is a very important reason for the professional choice. Among the reasonably good reasons, the factor “like this profession” is on the first place. Fol-lowing important causes are related to the future material well-being provided by the profession of pharmacist: the possibility of good career growth, good earnings, and the ability to run one's own business. Among the reasons of moderate importance are interest in the study of certain disciplines, in particular, interest in the practical part of chemistry, and the advice of relatives and acquaintances. The unimportant reason for Ukrainian medical students is a family tradition. The comparison of the results of two groups (in-tramural and extramural students) for each of the rea-sons for choosing a profession has been carried out using a non-parametric method of investigation, the χ-square criterion. In the course of the comparison, it has been determined that in almost all cases, students of different forms of studying equally assess the importance of the reasons identified in the questionnaire for choosing a pharmaceutical profession.