Survey of German medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic: attitudes toward volunteering versus compulsory service and associated factors

  1. Lorenz Mihatsch
  2. Mira von der Linde
  3. Franziska Knolle
  4. Benjamin Luchting
  5. Konstantinos Dimitriadis
  6. Jens Heyn

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Abstract

Due to the spread of COVID-19, a key challenge was to reduce potential staff shortages in the healthcare sector. Besides recruiting retired healthcare workers, medical students were considered to support this task. Commitment of medical students in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic was evaluated using an online survey, with particular focus on their burdens and anxieties. This survey was distributed to students within a 2-week period in April and May 2020. Ultimately, 1241 participants were included in the analysis. During the pandemic, 67.9% (65.3% to 70.5%) of the participants reported that they had volunteered. Furthermore, 88.9% (86.9% to 90.5%) stated that they were against compulsory recruitment in this context. Students who volunteered (committed students) had a significantly lower anxiety index than non-committed students. Additionally, students were more concerned about infecting other patients and relatives than themselves. Higher levels of anxiety were related to lower levels of commitment. A mandatory assignment during the pandemic was rejected by the students and does not seem to be necessary due to the large number of volunteers.

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  1. Version published to 10.1136/medethics-2020-107202
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.21.20236067: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Ethics: The questioning was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and it was approved on 19.05.2020 by the institutional Review Board of the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich (20-458 KB).
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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:
    Our study has some limitations:

    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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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.11.21.20236067v1 on medRxiv