Students??? Attitude and Perception towards Basic Sciences in a Medical School of Nepal: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Dev Kumar Shah , Rajesh Kumar Jha, Ajit Kumar Sah, Ajit Kumar Sah,Phoolgen Sah, Keshab Poudel Prasad Poudel, Govinda Prasad Dhungana

Background: The learning process of medical students is influenced by their attitude and perception towards different subjects. In conventional curriculum, basic medical sciences generally provide basement for students to construct the mansion of clinical knowledge and skills. Objective: We aimed to assess the first and second year medical students’ attitudes and perception towards the learning of basic sciences. Materials and methods: The questionnaire (nine items) designed by West and coworkers was distributed among 240 students and they were asked to denote their opinions using a five-point Likert scale, which ranges from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. First five items measured the perceived importance and relevance of basic sciences to clinical medicine, and last four items measured the students’ attitudes toward, and perceived effectiveness of their education in basic sciences. The median score of statements were compared between subgroups of respondents using Mann-Whitney and Chi-square tests, wherever applicable. Results: Mean age of students was 19.8± 1.2 years; 58.2% and 41.8% were male and female respectively. Most of the respondents though disagreed with first statement and were neutral for second statement, agreed with all the remaining statements. The median scores were 12 and 9 for combination of first five statements and last four statements respectively. Significant level (p=0.003) of disagreement was shown by scholarship students than self-financed on the effectiveness of their education in basic sciences. Students’ curiosity through teaching of basic sciences was found to be significantly decreased (p=0.035) in second year students. Conclusion: Students acknowledged the importance and relevance of basic sciences to clinical medicine and showed overall positive attitude toward, and perceived effectiveness of their education in basic sciences.