Exploring pharmacists' views about the contribution that reflective learning can make to the development of professional practice

Objective Postgraduate courses for pharmacists are increasingly incorporating reflection on learning and on professional practice as the theory of learning in use. This paper provides an insight into the views of pharmacists, who participated in a prescribing course, about using reflection to contribute to the development of their learning and professional practice. Method The research was exploratory in nature and employed an inductive, grounded theory strategy. Qualitative data were collected from focus groups and individual interviewees. Twenty-six individuals, who had been registered on Keele University's Supplementary Prescribing (SP) course, participated in total. Key findings and conclusions Two key themes are discussed in this paper that appear to the authors to provide an insight into how reflective learning contributes to the development of professional practice. The structured reflective activities included in participants' reflective portfolios were a catalyst to making them aware of the reflective learning process that they instinctively or intuitively used in their professional practice to some degree. Participants also appeared to be aware of different levels or depths of reflection. They articulated these in a more pragmatic way than the theoretical presentations of levels that appear in published literature. Overall, they saw reflection as being of benefit to their professional development, patient care and their interactions with other health professionals. They perceived it as a way of building the healthcare team through helping them integrate with other health professionals by developing a community of practice.