Pharmacy student use of ChatGPT: A survey of students at a U.S. School of Pharmacy

Abstract

Objective

To learn how students in an accredited PharmD program in the United States are using ChatGPT for personal, academic, and clinical reasons, and whether students think ChatGPT training should be incorporated into their program's curriculum.

Methods

In August 2023, an 18-item survey was developed, pilot tested, and sent to all students who were enrolled during the Spring 2023 semester in the entry-level PharmD program at the University of Colorado. E-mail addresses were separated from survey responses to maintain anonymity. Responses were described using descriptive statistics.

Results

206 pharmacy students responded to the survey for a 49% response rate. Nearly one-half (48.5%) indicated they had used ChatGPT for personal reasons; 30.2% had used it for academic reasons; and 7.5% had used it for clinical reasons. The most common personal use for ChatGPT was answering questions and looking-up information (67.0%). The top academic reason for using ChatGPT was summarizing information or a body of text (42.6%), while the top clinical reason was simplifying a complex topic (53.3%). Most respondents (61.8%) indicated they would be interested in learning about how ChatGPT could help them in pharmacy school, and 28.1% thought ChatGPT training should be incorporated into their pharmacy curriculum.

Conclusion

At the time of the survey, ChatGPT was being used by approximately one-half of our pharmacy student respondents for personal, academic, or clinical reasons. Overall, many students indicated they want to learn how to use ChatGPT to help them with their education and think ChatGPT training should be integrated into their curriculum.