Australian and New Zealand medical students’ confidence and preparedness to prescribe
Mokrzecki, Sophie, Perks, Stephen, Pain, Tilley, Sen Gupta, Tarun, and Mallett, Andrew J. (2025) Australian and New Zealand medical students’ confidence and preparedness to prescribe. BMC Medical Education, 25 (1). 536.
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Abstract
Background: Writing a medication prescription is an expected competency junior doctors internationally feel underprepared to complete. Providing clarity in medical prescribing education standards and assessment criteria may address the lack of preparedness. The primary aims of this study were to understand Australian and New Zealand (NZ) final-year medical students’ confidence and preparedness to write a discharge or outpatient prescription. Secondarily, identify by whom, when, and using what modalities education on prescription writing should be provided. Methods: This quantitative analytical cross-sectional survey was developed by SM and approved by all authors. Ethical approval allowed email survey distribution via REDCap® to participants from June to December 2022. Data was analysed using Microsoft Excel® and MedCalc odds ratio v23.1.6. Likert-scale responses were tabled comparing participant confidence and preparedness to handwrite and electronically write discharge or outpatient prescriptions. Descriptive analyses determined the preferred education modalities, educator, and time during medical degree to receive prescription writing education. Results: Final-year medical students from Australia (n = 123) and NZ (n = 51) completed the survey. Participants felt their university degree didn’t increase their preparedness to electronically or hand-write prescriptions. Learning on placement was most desirable in comparison to other options. Majority of participants selected pharmacists as the educator and their final year as an ideal time during their medical degree to receive education on prescription writing. Discussion: The absence of mandated education and assessment on the skill to prescribe was evident. The results showed a self-acknowledgement of under-preparedness and confidence to write medication prescriptions. This suggests a need for further education and specific assessment standards on the skill of prescription writing. Conclusion: Pharmacist-led mixed-methods education model during the final year of medical education is suggested to address gaps in education and assessment on prescription writing. Providing further education on the skill of prescription writing before graduation may reduce prescribing errors made as junior doctors.
| Item ID: | 87691 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1472-6920 |
| Keywords: | Medical education, Medical student, Pharmacist, Prescription, Undergraduate medical education |
| Copyright Information: | © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. |
| Date Deposited: | 19 Jan 2026 05:08 |
| FoR Codes: | 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4203 Health services and systems > 420304 General practice @ 30% 39 EDUCATION > 3901 Curriculum and pedagogy > 390110 Medicine, nursing and health curriculum and pedagogy @ 30% 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology > 520402 Decision making @ 40% |
| SEO Codes: | 20 HEALTH > 2001 Clinical health > 200105 Treatment of human diseases and conditions @ 100% |
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