Journal Clubs During Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences to Teach Literature-Evaluation Skills

OBJECTIVE:To determine pharmacy students' attitudes and academic performance related to journal club during 2 advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs). DESIGN:Fourth-year pharmacy students were required to complete 3 journal club assignments during drug information and internal medicine APPEs. ASSESSMENT:A majority (91.3%) of the 105 students who responded to a 21-item survey instrument indicated that journal club assignments during the drug-information APPE were valuable to their understanding of research design and statistics. Students who completed the drug-information APPE before the internal medicine APPE scored higher on their understanding of the strengths and weaknesses and the clinical relevance of studies and had a higher learning slope (p = 0.01) than did students who completed the internal medicine APPE first. CONCLUSION:Incorporating journal clubs into APPEs is an effective means of teaching literature-evaluation skills to pharmacy students.