Introduction
Recent published incidents in medical student populations have questioned the integrity of student professionals, who should display traits of honesty and probity(1). Dishonest behaviour is prevalent amongst pharmacy students; a previous study suggested that such behaviour may be a "coping strategy" due to pressures of high workload, desire for achievement and a competitive atmosphere in their degree programme(2,3). This study aims to compare the extent of academic dishonesty at five schools of pharmacy (faculties). Findings from a self-reported questionnaire are presented here.

Method
Standardised questionnaires were constructed with twelve scenarios depicting academic dishonest behaviour. These were distributed to undergraduate students in five schools of pharmacy; 4 were UK faculties, one was located in Canada. Students from all years responded to each statement by answering the following questions: "Is this cheating?"; "Have you ever done something similar?"; "Do you know of anyone who has done this?" The student responders represented a captive audience – the questionnaires were distributed in a lecture or classroom, to ensure a good response rate. Data from each school were aggregated, audited for error, coded and analyzed using SPSSv12. We have not identified the faculties in this paper.

Results
The sample proportions of respondents (n=1037) from each faculty ranged from 7.5% to 28.4%. We have identified differences between faculties in self-reported dishonest behaviours. For example, Faculty 4 had a greater proportion of students admitting that they borrowed/copied work, or engaged in handing work down to lower years (Table 1). Students were more likely to agree that photocopying friend's work "without permission" did constitute dishonest behaviour whereas to borrow work for ideas was not viewed as cheating at all. A total dishonesty score was calculated by summing self-reported dishonesty, showing significant differences between faculties (see Figure).

Discussion
This study shows the differences across faculties in the same and in different countries. Our results indicate that learning and curriculum environment contributes to the prevalence of academic dishonest behaviour. We suggest that academic dishonest behaviour should be further investigated as a potential indicator of learning quality. Thorough research on pharmacy curricula construction and design issues is warranted.
References

1. Rennie SC, Crosby JR. Are "tomorrow's doctors" honest? Questionnaire study exploiting medical students' attitudes and reported behaviour on academic misconduct. British Medical Journal 2001; 322:274-275.
2. Aggarwal R., Bates I., Davies JG., Khan I. A study of academic dishonesty among students at two pharmacy schools. Pharmaceutical Journal, 2002; 269: 529-33.
3. Hei-Wan Ng W., Davies JG., Bates I., Avellone M. Academic dishonesty among pharmacy students Pharmacy Education, 2003; 3(4): 261-269.