Intuitively, the application of ethical principles to pharmacy seems clear. The Code of Pharmacy Deontology and the Code of Pharmacy Ethics of the members of the Slovenian Pharmaceutical Society guide the ethical behaviour of Slovenian pharmacists, and the ethical competence of pharmacy students is based on their familiarity with them and the behaviour they acquire during the study process and through practical training in learning centres. The aim of the master's thesis was to investigate what ethical frames of reference pharmacy students develop through the application of ethical principles, by solving scenarios that they may encounter later in their profession and by illustrating ethical dilemmas. By reviewing the literature on ethical dilemma solving among pharmacy students in the Pubmed database, we developed the relevant content for the online survey questionnaire Ethical judgement of pharmacy students. Students from the first to the fifth year of the Uniform master's study programme Pharmacy at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ljubljana, including graduates, were included and 214 students completed the survey. SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) was used to test the statistical significance of the associations between socio-demographic data and the resolution of ethical dilemmas, the questions assessing the level of agreement with the pharmacist's handling of the ethical dilemma on a scale from 'disagree' to 'agree', and the justifications for the solutions to the scenarios. We found that the ethical principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, honesty, confidentiality and justice were reflected in students' responses to the ethical dilemma examples and could be used to assess ethically acceptable behaviour. The ethical principle of respect for autonomy is more difficult for students to satisfy - when choosing the scenario that presented them with the greatest challenge in making an ethically acceptable decision, students chose those that followed the proposed solution of respect for autonomy. Three statistically significant differences were found using coded justifications and socio-demographic data, and three statistically significant differences were found using socio-demographic data and questions on the evaluation of the resolution of ethical dilemmas. Females were more likely to justify their agreement with the pharmacist's behaviour on the basis of the ethical principle of fairness. Students differed by year in their choice of ethical principles to justify their agreement with the pharmacist's ethical decision in the ethical dilemma described. Upper year students were more familiar with the two codes. The percentage of self-assessed partially adequate ethical knowledge also increases with the year of study. Students from urban and rural areas differ in which ethical dilemma they find most challenging. The educational process influences the resolution of ethical dilemmas and represents the way students act as Master of Pharmacy students in the field of pharmacy. Using the ethical principles they applied to examples of situations in pharmacy practice, we propose that the codes currently designed for professional practice should be restructured to provide a source of principles and a consistent approach to resolving ethical dilemmas.
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