Global Trend for Human Resource Development Mapping for Pharmacists

Abstract

Pharmacist workforce planning remains a global challenge, with fragmented evidence and no comprehensive framework across diverse contexts. This paper aims to analyze structures and patterns of knowledge on pharmacist workforce planning and management at the discipline level. This study employed a systematic bibliometric analysis of 364 Scopus-indexed articles published between 1968 and 2024. The analysis was done using citation analysis, co-occurrence network analysis, and bibliographic coupling to identify key themes, patterns of connections, and directions of knowledge development. The results indicate that studies on pharmacist workforce planning can be clustered to reflect key dimensions of the workforce system, including strategic workforce management, specialty distribution, supply-demand analysis, and work system and technology design. Existing literature remains constrained by static frameworks and insufficient integration of roles, competencies, technology, and system dynamics. This study structures global knowledge and identifies future research directions to support forward looking pharmacist workforce planning in complex systems.