Survey: Medical Student Satisfaction in Egypt

Keywords: Cross sectional study, multi center

Medical Student Satisfaction about Medical Career and Factors Affecting it in Egypt: Multi-Center Cross-Sectional Study.

Background:

Satisfaction is the repercussion of the student to organizational success. Actually, satisfaction represents the level of student’s content in responding to the specificity of services provided by the organization. Thus student satisfaction is a major criterion in determining the quality provided through the process of services. If we are satisfied, we will do our best as success is determined by satisfaction of people.

In our study, we aim to assess the prevalence of satisfied medical students about medical career in Egypt and its association with academic performance and other related factors in order to reach ultimate benefit for our future physicians and clinicians.

Primary objectives:

To assess the prevalence of satisfied medical students about medical career in Egypt.

Secondary objectives:

• To assess the prevalence of

– Satisfied medical students about: – The faculty they are enrolled in. – Academic / clinical years. – Practical sessions and academic lectures.

– Students who will recommend other to pursue medicine as a professional career.

• To assess the association between satisfied medical students and other factors (Gender, Academic performance, Being from urban or rural settings, Participation in extracurricular activities, Cause of entrance of medical school, Intention of career planning)

Method: Questionnaire based multi-center cross-sectional study.

Population: Undergraduate medical students in Egypt.

Setting: We will conduct our study in 10 out of 19 randomly selected medical schools in Egypt (Aim Shams, Al-Alzhar medical school in Cairo, Medical schools in Alexandria, Assiut, Banha, Bani Suef, Cairo, Menoufia, Suez Canal and Tanta).

Study duration: Five months from 1^st April 2015 to 1^st September 2015.

Introduction:

The profession of medicine has taken its members on a vast ride during the past century leading to a massive increase in health care workforce(1). Satisfaction is the repercussion of the student to organizational success. Actually, satisfaction represents the level of student’s content in responding to the specificity of services provided by the organization. Thus student satisfaction is a major criterion in determining the quality provided through the process of services. If we are satisfied ,we will do our best(2). Students choose the medical career owing to several factors after high school. Some choose to pursue medicine as a career for job security and a luxurious income(3). Others choose medicine because of their family connection to medicine or to obtain a great reputation from being a physicion(4). But still ‘Interest in health and medicine’ is the most important reason for choosing medicine as a professional career(5).

All these factors raise the intention that lack of adequate information about their field of study has a great effect on their satisfaction and intention to complete their study. Many physicians reported no doubts that they had made the correct career choice. In contrast, surveys about 30-40% of practicing physicians would not only choose to enter the medical profession if they were deciding on a career again, but also would not encourage their children to pursue a medical career(6)(7).

Regarding satisfaction of the choosing the medical field, a study found that 59.4 of the first year students are satisfied with their field of study, 31.8% were satisfied with the university but not the field, 2% of the students were dissatisfied with their university and field. In the 4th year of university the percentage of dissatisfaction with the university and field increased to 16.3%. The grades of the students were higher in the first year and decreased in the next years and so recommended that the method of introduction to university should be revised(2)(3).

Career planning is a huge important factor insuring their life future success, so we aim to highlight factors that might affect students’ satisfaction with their medical career and its relation with academic performance.

Also we aim to assess other factors related to level of satisfaction affecting them as students and future clinicians such as (gender, academic performance, being from rural or urban areas, extracurricular activities and attendance of lectures).

There is a study shows that girls are superior to boys in learning and memorizing which affect their performance(8). On the other hand a recent study in Croatia has found that students from highly urbanized background reported the best academic grades, while students from rural and remote backgrounds reported the poorest(9).

It might be due to social adjustment and cultural collectivism in which girls are more superior than boys(10). Also a study showed that students who participate in extracurricular activities are less likely to drop out and more likely to have higher academic achievement(11). Until now, no up to date study conducted regarding students’ satisfaction and its association with academic performance in Egypt and several other factors affecting it.

Medical students are the backbone of the medical education process. Their opinions must be taken into consideration during evaluation of the educational process. Little satisfaction is critical if affecting the academic performance and future clinical performance.

So our main concern is to reveal the prevalence of students’ satisfaction about medical career in Egypt and its association with academic performance and factors affecting it in order to reach ultimate benefit for our future physicians and clinicians. Objectives:

Primary objectives:

To assess the prevalence of satisfied medical students about the medical career in Egypt.

Secondary objectives:

• To assess the prevalence of – Satisfied medical student towards: – The faculty they are enrolled in. – Academic / clinical years. – Practical sessions and academic lectures. – Students who will recommend other to pursue medicine as a professional career.
• To assess the association between satisfied medical student and other factors: – Gender. – Academic performance. – Participation in extracurricular activities. – Being from urban or rural settings. – Cause of entrance of medical school. – Intention of career planning and pursuing a particular specialty.

Outcomes:

Primary outcome:

Percentage of satisfied medical students about the medical career in Egypt.

Secondary outcomes:

• Percentage of – Satisfied medical students towards: – The faculty they are enrolled in. – Academic / clinical years. – Practical sessions and academic lectures. – Students who will recommend other to pursue medicine as a professional career.
• Relation between satisfied medical students and other factors: – Gender. – Academic performance. – Participation in extracurricular activities. – Being from urban or rural settings. – Cause of entrance of medical school. – Intention of career planning and pursuing a particular specialty. Bottom of Form

Outcome measures:

Primary outcome measures:

• We will use a structured web-based and self-reported questionnaire.
• We will ask about satisfaction with medical career using a likret scale of satisfaction (highly satisfied, satisfied, partially satisfied and not satisfied).

Secondary outcome measure: We will categorize the related factors in our questionnaire as:

• Gender (male, female).
• Academic grade in each year (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th) by percentage.
• Satisfaction about: – the faculty they are enrolled in. – academic / clinical years. – Practical sessions and academic lectures. Using a likret scale of satisfaction (highly satisfied, satisfied, partially satisfied and not satisfied).
• Hours taking in participating in activities inside or outside faculty per week (0, 2 h, 4 h, 6 h, > 6).
• Dwelling place (rural, urban).
• Cause of entrance of the faculty ( interest in the medical field, luxuries income, parents influence, social position, job security and others)
• Intention of career planning and pursuing a particular specialty (Yes, No).
• Recommend the medical field to others (Yes, No).

Methodology:

Design: Cross- sectional study using a structured web- based pilot tested and self-administrated questionnaire.

Setting: 10 out of 19 randomly selected medical schools in Egypt (Ain Shams, Al-Alzhar medical school in Cairo, Medical schools in Alexandria, Assiut, Banha, Bani Suef, Cairo, Menoufia, Suez Canal and Tanta).

Population: Undergraduate medical students in Egypt.

Eligibility criteria:

Including criteria: Undergraduate medical students in the ten medical schools where will conduct our study. Randomly selected with an equal allocation of students in each medical school and then in each group.

Excluding criteria: we will exclude non Egyptians students.

Study duration: Five months from 1st April 2015 to 1st September 2015. STATISTICAL CONSIDERATIONS:

a. Sample size:

To achieve a 99% CI, 2% margin of error and 50% response distribution, 3644 students will be required to stand for the study population.

b. Data analysis:

This section will be written by the statistician. STUDY PROCEDURES:

a. Questionnaire development:

The team of the study developed a questionnaire after a full literature review; questionnaire took one week and will be accepted as the study final questionnaire after pilot study. b. Questionnaire validation:

A pilot study will be conducted by the research team after a massive literature review to ensure the questionnaire validity, reliability, clarity of Questions and verifying that it is adequate and well accepted. Then the questions will be modified according to the results of the pilot study and expert opinions to develop the final questionnaire version, this will take seven days. c. Sampling and allocation strategy:

We will select study participants by multistage sampling technique; selecting ten medical schools around Egypt (Aim Shams, Al-Alzhar medical school in Cairo, Medical schools in Alexandria, Assiut, Banha, Bani Suef, Cairo, Menoufia, Suez Canal and Tanta), this will take a month. With an equal allocation strategy. d. Recruitment of participants:

People who fulfill our eligibility criteria will be recruited using their collage emails and social media emails (Facebook emails) to fill our online questionnaire, this will take six weeks.

e. Data Collection:

In each university there will be a well-trained team of data collection, this will take a month.

Ethical Consideration:

Ethical Approval will be taken from Institutional Review Boards (IRB) of the Menoufia faculty of medicine.

An informed Consent will be taken in which each subject has been informed of all aspects of the study.

The principle investigator and the co-investigators will be committed to the ethical principles that have their origin in the” Declaration of Helsinki”.

Appendix:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1rk4V9kTDpyMbyAuPKrLEXzkjWt-Pfl4_54bFmWvnSAw/viewform?usp=send_form