Medical students perceptions and motivations in time of COVID-19 pandemic

  1. Patricia Tempski
  2. Fernanda M Arantes-Costa
  3. Renata Kobayasi
  4. Marina AM Siqueira
  5. Matheus M Torsani
  6. Bianca QRC Amaro
  7. Maria Eduarda FM Nascimento
  8. Saulo L Siqueira
  9. Itamar S Santos
  10. Milton A Martins

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Abstract

Background: There has been a rapid increase in the number of cases of COVID19 in Latin America, Africa and Asia, in many countries that have an insufficient number of physicians and other health care personnel, and the need for the inclusion of medical students as part of the health teams is a very important issue. It has been recommended that medical students work as volunteers, have appropriate training, do not undertake any activity beyond their level of competence, have continuous supervision and adequate personal protective equipment. However, motivation of medical students must be evaluated in order to make volunteering a more evidence-based initiative. The aim of our study was to evaluate motivation of medical students to be part of the health team to help in the COVID19 pandemic. Methods and Findings: We developed a questionnaire specifically to evaluate medical students perceptions about participating in care of patients with suspected infection due to coronavirus during the COVID19 pandemic. The questionnaire had two parts: a) individual characteristics, year and geographic location of medical school; b) twenty eight statements responded on a 5 point Likert scale (totally agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree and totally disagree). To develop the questionnaire, we performed consensus meetings of a group of faculty and medical students. The questionnaire was sent to student organizations of 257 medical schools in Brazil and answered by 10,433 students. We used multinomial logistic regression models to analyse the data. Statements with greater odds ratios for participation of medical students in COVID19 pandemic were related to sense of purpose or duty (It is the duty of the medical student to put himself at the service of the population in the pandemic), altruism (I am willing to take risks by participating in practical in the context of pandemic), perception of good performance and professional identity (I will be a better health professional for having experienced the pandemic). Males had higher odds ratios than females (1.36 [95% CI: 1.24 to 1.49] to 1.68 [95% CI: 1.47 to 1.91]). Conclusions: Medical students are motivated by sense of purpose or duty, altruism, perception of good performance and values of professionalism more than their interest in learning. These results have implications in the developing of programs of volunteering and in the design of health force policies in the present pandemic and in future health emergencies.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.28.20115956: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Released 2013, SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 22.0.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Nonetheless, we cannot disregard gender bias as a possible limitation of our instrument. [18,19] COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial impact on medical education across the world. [3,5] There is uncertainty and disagreement about the appropriate roles for medical students during this pandemic, and student participation in clinical care has varied across institutions and countries. [4,12] Many medical schools forbid any patient interaction, others included medical students in patient care and others decided to graduate medical students early in order to make them frontline clinicians. The American Association of Medical Colleges recommended that “unless there is a critical health care workforce need locally, we strongly suggest that medical students not be involved in any direct patient care activities”. [4] However, some medical educators have a different point of view, considering that medical schools should offer students clinical opportunities that would benefit patient care and potentially help to prevent workforce shortages. [20,21] These different attitudes may have implications for medical education concerning the role of medical students in a local or global health emergency. Some educators chose the position to ensure student security and to avoid exposition, and this perspective can send a message (hidden curriculum) that students have a passive role without a significant social responsibility. On the other hand, medical educators that defend the inclusion of the med...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.28.20115956v1 on medRxiv