Do South Australian pharmacy interns have the educational and behavioural precursors to meet the objectives of Australia's health care reform agenda?

Objective: To explore South Australian (SA) pharmacy interns' values, beliefs and motivations to study pharmacy and their assessment of how well their pharmacy education has prepared them for activities required of all health professionals under Australia's health care reforms.

Methods: A postal questionnaire was sent to all 136 SA pharmacy interns enrolled in SA intern training programmes in February 2010 (second month of the intern training programme).

Key Findings: Sixty (44%) of SA pharmacy interns responded; 75% selected pharmacy as a career because of an interest in health-related sciences and 65% valued working with patients. Respondents believed their pharmacy education prepared them for patient care (80%), providing medicine information (72%) and primary health care delivery (68%), but 51% indicated that they were not prepared for multidisciplinary team care.

Conclusions: The positive values, beliefs and motivations expressed by respondents are significant behavioural precursors to meet the requirements of health professionals in Australia's health care reforms. Respondents indicated that their pharmacy education provided appropriate training in a number of relevant professional areas.