Entrepreneurial Traits and Career Options of Pharmacy Undergraduates in the University Of Port-Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria

Purpose: The study aims to explore the level of entrepreneurial traits and Career options of Pharmacy undergraduates of the University of Port Harcourt and to determine the relationship between entrepreneurial traits and Career options.
Methodology: The research design adopted for the study is the correlational study design. Quantitative data was collected using structured questionnaires on a sample population of Two hundred and thirteen pharmacy undergraduates selected by Stratified random sampling. Collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, weighted averages, mean of weighted averages (MWA) and Spearman rank correlation was used as inferential statistics to determine the strength of the relationship between the independent and the dependent variables.
Results: The level of entrepreneurial traits of the students was
found to be 4 (MWA = 3.6) while majority (28%) of the respondents chose Community pharmacy as their desired area of career, others chose public health and regulatory pharmacy (14.5%), Hospital pharmacy (15%), Industrial pharmacy (18%), Academic pharmacy (6%), other areas in pharmacy (3.5%), other areas outside Pharmacy (4.5%) and 10% were undecided. The study also showed that a positive and significant relationship exist between entrepreneurial traits and community pharmacy as well as Industrial pharmacy with a correlation coefficient of +0.823 and +0.791 respectively at p-value <0.05. A correlation coefficient +0.610, +0.561 and +0.571 at p-value <0.05 was obtained for Academic and research pharmacy, public health and regulatory pharmacy and Hospital pharmacy respectively. Other areas outside pharmacy and those that were undecided had a weak correlation of +0.421 and +0.431 respectively at p-value <0.05, with other areas in pharmacy having the weakest correlation coefficient of +0.321 at p-value <0.05.
Conclusions: The study concluded that the level of entrepreneurial traits of the students was high, and majority possessed desire to have a career in community pharmacy, also a positive and significant relationship exist between Entrepreneurial traits and Career paths in community and Industrial pharmacy practice.
Recommendation: Entrepreneurship education should be incorporated into pharmacy undergraduate curriculum to further strengthen or enhance students’ entrepreneurship skills upon graduation