scholarly journals Medical education in times of COVID-19: German students’ expectations – A cross-sectional study

PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (11) ◽  
pp. e0241660
Author(s):  
Teresa Loda ◽  
Tobias Löffler ◽  
Rebecca Erschens ◽  
Stephan Zipfel ◽  
Anne Herrmann-Werner

Background Since the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the education of medical students, medical faculties have faced the challenge of adapting instruction to digital platforms. Although medical students are willing to support pandemic response efforts, how the crisis will affect their medical training remains uncertain. Thus, in this study, we investigated the teaching- and learning-related stressors and expectations of medical students in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods A cross-sectional survey was distributed online to undergraduate medical students at medical faculties in Germany. Students answered questions about COVID-19 and teaching (on a 7-point Likert scale from 0 (“not at all”) to 6 (“completely”)) and completed mental well-being measurements, including the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), the Generalised Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD-7) and the Perceived Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). Descriptive data analysis, a t-test and Pearson correlations were performed to process the data. Results Medical students felt well-informed about COVID-19 in general (M = 5.64, SD = 1.28) and in the medical context (M = 5.14, SD = 1.34) but significantly less informed about the pandemic in the academic context, M = 2.47, SD = 1.49, t(371) = 31.98, p < .001. Their distress levels were high (STAI: M = 45.12, SD = 4.73) and significantly correlated with the academic context (rp = .164, p < .01) but not their private lives. Concerning how they were taught, they most often expected online lectures (91.7%) and live broadcasts (67.2%) and less often expected innovative digital teaching strategies, including serious games (17.3%) and virtual-reality exercises (16.7%). Discussion Medical students seem to be aware of the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences for academic and healthcare contexts. They also seem to think that their teachers will enhance their digital competencies during the pandemic. Therefore, faculties of medicine need to rapidly and adequately digitalise their approaches to teaching.

Author(s):  
Renu Sethia ◽  
Gaurav Sharma ◽  
Kirti Shekhawat ◽  
Aarti Aacharya ◽  
Rekha Acharya ◽  
...  

Background: Recently there is growing concern about stress during undergraduate’s medical training. Undue stress may cause adverse health consequences and lowered academic performance. Objective of the study was to know perceived level of stress and its causes among undergraduate medical students.Methods: A cross sectional survey, using self-structured questionnaire, was conducted among 65 third year medical students. Questionnaires were related to socio-demographic profile, perceived stress scale [PSS] and 32 item list of stressors (grouped as health related, academic and psycho-social). Student’s responses were recorded on five point Likert scale.Results: Mean PSS score was 25.53±5.55 and was significantly higher for females. Psycho-social stressors occurred most frequently, followed by the academic causes.Conclusions: Medical undergraduates face high level of stress and the causes may be varied. They need more interaction, counselling and support from faculty to relieve their stress.


Background: Information technology (IT) is a new way of teaching and learning. One of the promising media of information technology is e-Learning, which is used to enhance knowledge and skills among users. A student gains better and deep knowledge through a useful tool. This survey aimed to determine practices among medical students for e-Learning. Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted on 184 students amongst the 500 students currently enrolled in medical college. Data was collected using questionnaires and were analyzed through SPSS version 22. Chi-square was used for qualitative values. Results: Majority 90.80% (n=167) students were aware of e-Learning and were statistically high in first year students (p-value: 0.018). The student did not show statistically significant results for content learned through e-Learning with a p-value of 0.063. Different resources were used for e-Learning in which videos had the highest percentage (87.60%) and audios were used as the least resource for e-Learning (29.20%). Daily, 56% of the students use e-Learning for 1 hour or less and only 3% of the students used it for more than 4 hours. Conclusion: Majority of undergraduate medical students were aware of the use of e-Learning and most of them preferred e-Learning for their course work and studies showing a significant increase in understanding and use, compared to studies conducted earlier. Participants found e-Learning useful and effective tool in increasing knowledge and understanding of their subject. Keywords: e-Learning; Practices; Students.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (9) ◽  
pp. 2880-2886
Author(s):  
Syed Hussain Raza Zaidi ◽  
Sara Mukhtar ◽  
Rahila Yasmeen ◽  
Rehan Ahmed Khan ◽  
Tayyaba Azhar ◽  
...  

Background: Undergraduate medical studies are tough and require long hours of study and thus can lead to significant stress for the students both physically and emotionally. Stress can affect a student’s mental wellbeing and can lead to anxiety, fatigue and depression. Medical undergraduates report a greater level of perceived stress then general population. We need to understand the stressors affecting the health of our students in order to prevent psychological and emotional consequences. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study using the Medical student stressor questionnaire (MSSQ) was designed to determine the different stressors that a medical student deals with during their educational career at the University College of Medicine (UCM) at University of Lahore (UOL). Student participation in this study was voluntary. 1st, 2nd and 3rd year MBBS students of UCM were included in the study. The questionnaire has 20 questions that determine the academic, interpersonal & intrapersonal, teaching and learning, social, drive and desire, and group activities related stressors. The students were further asked to answer questions related to their gender, study routine and physical activity. They were also asked about family and social support available to them. SPSS software version 23 was utilized for data analysis. Results: Data revealed that the 2nd and 3rd year students regard academic related stressors as the most bothersome for them, whereas the desire related stressors were regarded by them as causing mild to moderate stress. The remaining four domains were rated as causing only moderate stress. 1st year students graded the academic related stressors as the cause of most stress for them, while the teaching and learning related stressors, interpersonal related stressors and social related stressors were rated less than it. Drive and desire related stressors were regarded as causing mild stress. When we compared the data from all three years, we found that group activates related stressors were regarded as least stressful by 3rd year students. 3rd year MBBS students rated the intrapersonal & interpersonal stressors, social related stressors, drive and desire related stressors and group activity related stressors at a level that was lower than the 1st & 2nd year MBBS students. Conclusions: Academic related stressors and teaching and learning related stressors were rated as being most stressful by students of all three years. Institutions should take to make the learning environment less stressful for the students as continued stress can adversely affect the health and mental well-being of the students. Keywords: Undergraduate Medical Students, Stress, Medical student stressor questionnaire (MSSQ)


Author(s):  
Allison Brown ◽  
Aliya Kassam ◽  
Mike Paget ◽  
Kenneth Blades ◽  
Megan Mercia ◽  
...  

Background: The evidence surrounding the impact of COVID-19 on medical learners remains anecdotal and highly speculative despite the anticipated impact and potential consequences of the current pandemic on medical training. The purpose of this study was to explore the extent that COVID-19 initially impacted medical learners around the world and examine global trends and patterns across geographic regions and levels of training. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of medical learners was conducted between March 25–June 14, 2020, shortly after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Results: 6492 learners completed the survey from 140 countries. Most medical schools removed learners from the clinical environment and adopted online learning, but students reported concerns about the quality of their learning, training progression, and milestone fulfillment. Residents reported they could be better utilized and expressed concerns about their career timeline. Trainees generally felt under-utilized and wanted to be engaged clinically in meaningful ways; however, some felt that contributing to healthcare during a pandemic was beyond the scope of a learner. Significant differences were detected between levels of training and geographic regions for satisfaction with organizational responses as well as the impact of COVID-19 learner wellness and state-trait anxiety. Conclusions: The disruption to the status quo of medical education is perceived by learners across all levels and geographic regions to have negatively affected their training and well-being, particularly amongst postgraduate trainees. These results provide initial empirical insights into the areas that warrant future research as well as consideration for current and future policy planning.


Author(s):  
Shaikh Arshiya Kaiser Husain ◽  
Anwaya R. Magare ◽  
Purushottam A. Giri ◽  
Vijaykumar S. Jadhav

Background: The aim of medical education is to produce competent, physically and mentally strong health professionals, as they are going to be the pillars of the future health care system. Stress is one of the most common and process-oriented obstacles in medical education. It often exerts a negative effect on the academic performance, physical health, and psychological well-being of the students. Dealing with overloaded medical curriculum, competing with peers, being away from home and meeting high expectations imposed by parents and society to excel is among the common stressful transitions at this stage.Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out amongst 352 undergraduate medical students of a private medical college in a rural area of Maharashtra during April to October 2019. The structured questionnaire was used to record the data. Collected data was used to assess the severity of mental health issues among medical students.Results: Majority 194 (55.11%) students were in the age of 18 to 20 years followed by 141 (40.06%) were in 21 to 23 years. There were 196 (55.68%) girl students and 156 (44.32%) boys. According to the various categories, 80 (22.73%) of the students had low stress scores, followed by 76 (21.59%) in minimal. A highly significant difference in stress scores was seen between boys and girls, which was more in boys.Conclusions: Study concluded that undergraduate medical students perceive minimal to very high stress presented as various systems that vary with the year of study and gender wise too. There is a further need to look into the various causes of stress.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 643-647
Author(s):  
Shumaila Irum ◽  
Muhammad Zafar Iqbal ◽  
Fatima Naumeri

The primary success of educational environment heavily depends upon benefits to learners and this further facilitates the learning processing. The most commonly used tool, to measure it, is Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM). Objective: This study was designed to evaluate the perceptions of medical students in pre-clinical years about educational environment in a public sector medical college of Pakistan and to compare the DREEM scores with previous published scores. Material and Methods: The DREEM questionnaire was conducted on undergraduate medical students (n=300) of Sheikh Zayed Medical College, Rahim Yar Khan, during the month of June 2015. Results: Two eighty-six (n=286) of the 300 students (95.33%) completed the questionnaire. Analysisof these subjected indicated a total mean score of 113.68. Mean for students’ perception of learning was 26.65±10.235, mean for students’ perceptions of teachers was 26.63±10.177. On the other hands, the mean scores for students’ academic self-perception, students’ perception of the atmosphere, and students’ social self-perception were 17.17±6.73, 26.89±10.89, and 16.34±6.70, respectively. Conclusion: Although DREEM scores showed improvement from previously published scores of same medical college, it also highlighted the areas needing further improvement.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. p152
Author(s):  
Abdeslam Benali ◽  
Hajar Chichou

Introduction: Studies concur that an optimal learning environment is a vital aspect for effective learning and for enhancing students’ well-being. Conversely, medical training is reported to be a suboptimal environment, thereby compromising students’ learning and well-being.Purpose: To evaluate the relationship between students’ perceptions of the educational environment and their mental health.Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive and analytical study, using the GHQ-12 and the DREEM questionnaires, with 380 students from the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of Marrakech (3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th year), during the academic year 2017-2018. Results: We recruited 358 students in a period of 2 weeks, achieving a response rate of 94.2%. There was a predominance of females (66.48%). The mean age was 22.20 ± 2.149 years. The average GHQ score was 6.37 ± 3.484, with a psychological distress rate of 66.76%. The mean total score of DREEM was 86.5 ± 29.194 which indicates the existence of several significant problems. There was a statistically significant association between the poor perception of the educational environment and psychological distress.Conclusion: Improving the educational environment and promoting deep learning approaches for medical students will improve their psychological health during medical training.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (9) ◽  
pp. 2207-2211
Author(s):  
Qudsia Umaira Khan ◽  
Hameyl Tahir ◽  
Abdur Rafae Ahmad

Background: The study of physiology is an essential part of the medical school curriculum. Medical teachers have identified the preference for a specific mode of content delivery to communicate knowledge to students in a rational, strategic, coherent, and sequential manner. In comparison to the focus on systems-based didactic lectures, more emphasis is now put on the developing critical thinking skills. Physiology is widely acknowledged as a difficult subject for medical students to grasp, incorporate, and apply in clinical sciences. Aim: To learn about students’ perceptions of teaching, learning, and assessment approaches used in the physiology. Method A quantitative cross-sectional survey was conducted online on 533 medical students from first to final year and also post grate students. After the approval of Ethical review committee, a questionnaire to determine the various aspects of Physiology as a subject being taught. The survey was conducted online via “Google forms''. Participants answered anonymously with informed consent, and the survey was conducted for a period of two months. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 23. Results: A total number of 533 students participated in this research and responding to Physiology learning and teaching. When students were asked about that which subject is most interesting in first Year MBBS, majority of the students that is 46.2% of the responses claimed that Physiology is the most interesting subject. 33.6% students were from 1st Year. 9.2% students were Postgraduates. 63.4% of the students preferred studying physiology from Guyton and Hall as reference book for Physiology. Majority of students that is 25.5% of the students found Blood Physiology to be the most interesting. Whereas 19.8% found Heart or Cardio Vascular System Physiology as the most interesting subject.15.6% found cell and nerve muscle as an interesting topic in Physiology.9.6% found Endocrinology and reproduction physiology as interesting as compared to 7.7% who found central Nervous system Physiology interesting. 43.9% of the students responded that they perfeer face to face interactive lectures.23.3% of the students perfered small group discussion.10.9% students prefered learing by tutorilas.Interestingly, 20.4% of the participants replied that they would definitely pursue physiology as their career. Conclusion: Physiology is the most interesting subject preferred by majority of students. Keywords: Perception, learning methodologies, medical students


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