Evaluation of Pharmacology MCQ Papers of MBBS Professional Examinations

This cross sectional descriptive study was conducted to observe the quality of Pharmacology professional MCQ papers of different Universities of Bangladesh. For this purpose, total 80 MCQ papers of five universities dated from January 2007 to July 2015 were reviewed against a checklist to find out the coverage of recall, understanding and problem solving type questions, content coverage and construction of each question. The mean of recall, understanding and problem based type questions of all the universities were 92.1, 7.8 and 0.1 respectively and all of them statistically significantly differed from curriculum standard. All of the MCQ papers contained more than 75% recall type questions and 27.5% MCQ papers had only recall questions, Only 1(1.2%) MCQ papers contained 100 % topics (all the 11 groups). Eighteen (22.5%) contained 10 groups and 26.3% contained 9 groups out of 11. Forty percent MCQ papers contained less than 80% topics. Most of the stems of the MCQ were in the form of incomplete sentence (53.5%), 28.4% were in the form of complete statement and 16.8% were in the form of single word. Only 0.4% stem were in the form of clinical scenario. Fifty (62.5%) MCQ papers had defective stems and 68.75% had defective options. Total 14 (17.5%) MCQ papers were without any flaw but the rest 88.5% MCQ papers were with flaws either defective stem or faulty options or both. Findings of this study may be used to redefine the distribution of different type of questions in SAQ papers and to improve the quality of question papers by ensuring their coverage. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Education Vol.13(1) January 2022: 49-57

Research Study on Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development in Mongolia

There is scientific consensus that Mongolia is already facing the negative consequences of climate change. Raising public awareness and increasing education initiatives is one of the most important ways to adapt and mitigate climate change. The paper consists of two main sections. The first section reviewed the policies and provisions in support developing climate change education for sustainable development and analyzed the level of teachers' knowledge of climate change education for sustainable development and determined the needs for teacher training. The second part assessed the coverage level of climate change education for sustainability in national educational standards, curricula and textbooks in Mongolia. To evaluate the coverage level, the team defined the concepts and coverage of Climate change education (CCE), Disaster risk reduction (DRR) and Education for sustainable development (ESD) and developed the indicators to analyze CCE/DRR/ESD content coverage on the curricula and textbooks.

Radiology reporting in rectal cancer using MRI: adherence to national template for structured reporting

Background In 2014, a national workshop program was initiated and a reporting template and manual for rectal cancer primary staging using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was introduced and made available by the national Swedish Colorectal Cancer Registry. Purpose To evaluate the effect of the national template program by identify if there was a gap between the content in Swedish MRI reports from 2016 and the national reporting template from 2014. The aim was to explore and compare differences in content in reporting practice in different hospitals in relation to the national reporting template, with focus on: (i) identifying any implementational differences in reporting styles; and (ii) evaluating if reporting completeness vary based on such implementational differences. Material and Methods A total of 250 MRI reports from 10 hospitals in four healthcare regions in Sweden were collected. Reports were analyzed using qualitative content analysis with a deductive thematic coding scheme based on the national reporting template. Results Three different implemented reporting styles were identified with variations of content coverage in relation to the template: (i) standardized and structured protocol (reporting style A); (ii) standardized semi-structured free-text (reporting style B); and (iii) regular free-text (reporting style C). The relative completeness of reporting practice of rectal cancer staging in relation to the national reporting template were 92.9% for reporting style A, 77.5% for reporting style B, and 63.9% for reporting style C. Conclusion The implementation of template-based reporting according to reporting style A is a key factor to conform to evidence-based practice for rectal cancer reporting using MRI.

Quality assessment of web-based information on type 2 diabetes

PurposeThis paper proposes a framework that automatically assesses content coverage and information quality of health websites for end-users.Design/methodology/approachThe study investigates the impact of textual and content-based features in predicting the quality of health-related texts. Content-based features were acquired using an evidence-based practice guideline in diabetes. A set of textual features inspired by professional health literacy guidelines and the features commonly used for assessing information quality in other domains were also used. In this study, 60 websites about type 2 diabetes were methodically selected for inclusion. Two general practitioners used DISCERN to assess each website in terms of its content coverage and quality.FindingsThe proposed framework outputs were compared with the experts' evaluation scores. The best accuracy was obtained as 88 and 92% with textual features and content-based features for coverage assessment respectively. When both types of features were used, the proposed framework achieved 90% accuracy. For information quality assessment, the content-based features resulted in a higher accuracy of 92% against 88% obtained using the textual features.Research limitations/implicationsThe experiments were conducted for websites about type 2 diabetes. As the whole process is costly and requires extensive expert human labelling, the study was carried out in a single domain. However, the methodology is generalizable to other health domains for which evidence-based practice guidelines are available.Practical implicationsFinding high-quality online health information is becoming increasingly difficult due to the high volume of information generated by non-experts in the area. The search engines fail to rank objective health websites higher within the search results. The proposed framework can aid search engine and information platform developers to implement better retrieval techniques, in turn, facilitating end-users' access to high-quality health information.Social implicationsErroneous, biased or partial health information is a serious problem for end-users who need access to objective information on their health problems. Such information may cause patients to stop their treatments provided by professionals. It might also have adverse financial implications by causing unnecessary expenditures on ineffective treatments. The ability to access high-quality health information has a positive effect on the health of both individuals and the whole society.Originality/valueThe paper demonstrates that automatic assessment of health websites is a domain-specific problem, which cannot be addressed with the general information quality assessment methodologies in the literature. Content coverage of health websites has also been studied in the health domain for the first time in the literature.

Evaluation of OSPE in Medical Laboratory Sciences Department: Post- Examinations Quality Metrics

Introduction: Assessment plays a major role in improving the learning and teaching process. The practical examination has a key role in the assessment of students' competences. In conventional method, the judgment of students' performances is mainly subjective because the same performance of students is graded differently by different examiners. Successful implementation of OSPE deals with this major deficit of the conventional methods Assessing the assessment is very important because the implementation of OSPEs are very complex and resource intensive, as it needs large numbers of examiners, candidates and physical resources and equipment as well as time. Assurance of sufficient quality of OSPEs by a range of metrics that gives us critical view about the assessment process as a whole, rather than focusing on candidate outcomes only. Objectives of the study: The objectives of this study were To evaluate OSPEs conducted by Medical laboratory sciences department in Fakeeh College for Medical Sciences(FCMS) with regards to their quality metrics as an assessment tool. Results: A cross-sectional analytic study was conducted in Medical Laboratory Sciences Department Practical Examinations at FCMS Before OSPE conduction, the different stations were revised for criteria of content coverage, skills assessed, clarity of language, dominant domain assessed, and time allocated for each station. Post examinations quality metrics results showed that the reliability of the different examination in Medical Laboratory Sciences department ranged from 0.75 to 0.93 that mean good to excellent reliability. One OSPE showed that one or two stations didn't contribute to the overall all reliability of the whole exam. All OSPEs showed that there are good positive correlation between the theoretical and practical part of the course, and this come with the concurrent evidence of validity.

Developing Metacognitive Instructors through a Guided Journal

Metacognitive instructors incorporate awareness and timely self-regulation in their teaching practice to support their current students’ learning. This exploratory study, using mixed methods, gathered empirical data to extend the work on student metacognition by documenting teacher experiences with metacognitive instruction, the impact of instructor use of a guided journal on the development of metacognitive instruction practices, and students’ perceptions of instructor responsiveness to their learning and engagement. Journal Intervention (N = 40) and Control (N = 33) instructors from five institutions and their students (N = 796) responded to multiple questionnaires throughout a semester. Data revealed significantly more baseline familiarity with and engagement in reflective teaching than metacognitive instruction for both groups. Within the Intervention group, qualitative data consistently suggested a positive impact from engagement with the journal, especially with respect to an increased focus on learning objectives and student engagement (rather than on content coverage) in pre-lesson planning, and on being aware of how students were achieving the learning objectives. Significant positive correlations were found between instructor use of the journal and student ratings of instructor responsiveness to their learning and engagement, and instructor use of effective instructional practices. Although instructors were enthusiastic overall about using the journal and incorporating metacognitive instruction, they did report barriers including time, existing habits, and uncertainty about alternate instructional practices. Based on our findings, we share strategies for using our journal prompts as a tool to facilitate faculty development of metacognitive instruction.

Doctors’ view about status of Teaching & Learning of Psychiatry at Undergraduate Medical Education in Bangladesh

This descriptive type of cross-sectional study was carried out at different Upazilla levels hospitals of Dhaka, Chattogram, Khulna, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Barisal & Rangpur divisions. It was conducted to find out the views of the doctors serving at primary health care level about the status of teaching & learning of Psychiatry at undergraduate medical education level in Bangladesh. The contents, teaching-learning hours, teaching-learning methods & assessment needed for Psychiatry of undergraduate medical curriculum 2002 & 2012 of Bangladesh were also reviewed & compared by the researcher. The study period was July 2019 to June 2020. A self-administered semi-structured questionnaire with five-point Likert scale was used. Convenience sampling technique was adopted & total 307 doctors participated in this study with their valuable opinions. After reviewing and comparing of undergraduate curriculum 2002 & 2012, it was found that content coverage & 20 hours lecture in psychiatry was same in both curricula. But block posting was reduced from 5 days to 3 days & ward placements was reduced from 4 weeks to 3 weeks in the curriculum of 2012 from curriculum of 2002. In curriculum 2002, there were 17.5 marks in written and 01 OSCE station in practical for Psychiatry and one examiner from either Psychiatry or Dermatology in paper II of Medicine in final professional MBBS examination. But there is no such provision for psychiatry in curriculum 2012. Among 307 doctors, 287 (86.9%) agreed that behavioral science should be taught by Psychiatrist instead of Community Medicine Specialist. Only 36 (11.8%) respondents agreed that their learning & training in psychiatry were sufficient during MBBS. Although, 227 (73.9%) doctors agreed that in their practice, a major portion of the patients were suffering from psychiatric problem, only 84 (27.4%) of them were confident enough to manage common Psychiatric cases. Among respondents, 238 (77.6%) agreed that placement of MBBS students in psychiatry should be from 3rd year and 260 (84.7%) agreed that Psychiatry should be given more weightage in MBBS curriculum. Around 180 (58.4%) doctors agreed that Psychiatry should be a separate subject as per standard set by WFME. Regarding examinership, 69% (212) respondents agreed that there should be one examiner from psychiatry in MBBS final Professional examination and 86.9% (267) of the respondents agreed that the Psychiatric part of MBBS curriculum should be updated immediately. The study recommended to update the psychiatric portion of MBBS Curriculum considering psychiatry as a separate subject as per the directive of WFME & like many countries of the world. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Education Vol.12(2) July 2021: 18-22

Correction: A Determinants-of-Fertility Ontology for Detecting Future Signals of Fertility Issues From Social Media Data: Development of an Ontology (Preprint)

BACKGROUND South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world despite considerable governmental efforts to boost it. Increasing the fertility rate and achieving the desired outcomes of any implemented policies requires reliable data on the ongoing trends in fertility and preparations for the future based on these trends. OBJECTIVE The aims of this study were to (1) develop a determinants-of-fertility ontology with terminology for collecting and analyzing social media data; (2) determine the description logics, content coverage, and structural and representational layers of the ontology; and (3) use the ontology to detect future signals of fertility issues. METHODS An ontology was developed using the Ontology Development 101 methodology. The domain and scope of the ontology were defined by compiling a list of competency questions. The terms were collected from Korean government reports, Korea’s Basic Plan for Low Fertility and Aging Society, a national survey about marriage and childbirth, and social media postings on fertility issues. The classes and their hierarchy were defined using a top-down approach based on an ecological model. The internal structure of classes was defined using the entity-attribute-value model. The description logics of the ontology were evaluated using Protégé (version 5.5.0), and the content coverage was evaluated by comparing concepts extracted from social media posts with the list of ontology classes. The structural and representational layers of the ontology were evaluated by experts. Social media data were collected from 183 online channels between January 1, 2011, and June 30, 2015. To detect future signals of fertility issues, 2 classes of the ontology, the socioeconomic and cultural environment, and public policy, were identified as keywords. A keyword issue map was constructed, and the defined keywords were mapped to identify future signals. R software (version 3.5.2) was used to mine for future signals. RESULTS A determinants-of-fertility ontology comprised 236 classes and terminology comprised 1464 synonyms of the 236 classes. Concept classes in the ontology were found to be coherently and consistently defined. The ontology included more than 90% of the concepts that appeared in social media posts on fertility policies. Average scores for all of the criteria for structural and representations layers exceeded 4 on a 5-point scale. Violence and abuse (socioeconomic and cultural factor) and flexible working arrangement (fertility policy) were weak signals, suggesting that they could increase rapidly in the future. CONCLUSIONS The determinants-of-fertility ontology developed in this study can be used as a framework for collecting and analyzing social media data on fertility issues and detecting future signals of fertility issues. The future signals identified in this study will be useful for policy makers who are developing policy responses to low fertility.

A Determinants-of-Fertility Ontology for Detecting Future Signals of Fertility Issues From Social Media Data: Development of an Ontology

Background South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world despite considerable governmental efforts to boost it. Increasing the fertility rate and achieving the desired outcomes of any implemented policies requires reliable data on the ongoing trends in fertility and preparations for the future based on these trends. Objective The aims of this study were to (1) develop a determinants-of-fertility ontology with terminology for collecting and analyzing social media data; (2) determine the description logics, content coverage, and structural and representational layers of the ontology; and (3) use the ontology to detect future signals of fertility issues. Methods An ontology was developed using the Ontology Development 101 methodology. The domain and scope of the ontology were defined by compiling a list of competency questions. The terms were collected from Korean government reports, Korea’s Basic Plan for Low Fertility and Aging Society, a national survey about marriage and childbirth, and social media postings on fertility issues. The classes and their hierarchy were defined using a top-down approach based on an ecological model. The internal structure of classes was defined using the entity-attribute-value model. The description logics of the ontology were evaluated using Protégé (version 5.5.0), and the content coverage was evaluated by comparing concepts extracted from social media posts with the list of ontology classes. The structural and representational layers of the ontology were evaluated by experts. Social media data were collected from 183 online channels between January 1, 2011, and June 30, 2015. To detect future signals of fertility issues, 2 classes of the ontology, the socioeconomic and cultural environment, and public policy, were identified as keywords. A keyword issue map was constructed, and the defined keywords were mapped to identify future signals. R software (version 3.5.2) was used to mine for future signals. Results A determinants-of-fertility ontology comprised 236 classes and terminology comprised 1464 synonyms of the 236 classes. Concept classes in the ontology were found to be coherently and consistently defined. The ontology included more than 90% of the concepts that appeared in social media posts on fertility policies. Average scores for all of the criteria for structural and representations layers exceeded 4 on a 5-point scale. Violence and abuse (socioeconomic and cultural factor) and flexible working arrangement (fertility policy) were weak signals, suggesting that they could increase rapidly in the future. Conclusions The determinants-of-fertility ontology developed in this study can be used as a framework for collecting and analyzing social media data on fertility issues and detecting future signals of fertility issues. The future signals identified in this study will be useful for policy makers who are developing policy responses to low fertility.

Mental health education in undergraduate medical curricula across Nepalese universities

Background Mental and substance use disorders account for 30 % of the non-fatal disease burden and 10 % of the overall disease burden but the treatment gap is daunting. With just one psychiatrist per 200,000 populations in Nepal, the only convincing way to improve access to the services quickly is by mobilizing non-specialized medical practitioner. A robust mental health component within the training curriculum of general medical doctors could produce medical graduates with adequate knowledge and skills to deliver basic mental health service. We reviewed the mental health curricula for medical students of all the medical universities in Nepal. Methods Information on existing mental health curricula was collected from the faculty of the respective universities with respect to content coverage, teaching methods and evaluation patterns. The mental health curricula were described in relation to teaching duration, duration of clinical rotation, duration of internship, and the relative weight of mental health in examination marks. Teaching methods were classified broadly as passive and active. Assessment methods were documented. Content coverage of the curricula was evaluated with respect to history taking and general physical examination, the priority mental health conditions, topics on behavioural sciences, and child mental health or other topics. Results The duration of teaching on mental health in general medical doctor training in Nepalese medical universities ranges from 25 to 92 h. All medical universities have a relative focus on the priority mental neurological and substance use disorders. The clinical rotation on mental health is mostly two weeks, except in one university where it can be extended up to 4 weeks with an elective clinical rotation. The relative weight of summative assessment ranges from 0.21 to 2.5 % total marks of the entire training. Conclusions Considerable disparities exist in course content, teaching/learning modalities and assessments for mental health across Nepalese medical universities. The relative proportion of mental health in medical curricula as well as teaching/learning and assessments are far below ideal in these universities. These findings suggest a need for increasing time allocation, adopting newer teaching learning methods, and also having a mandatory clinical rotation during training and during internship.