A survey of voluntary activities in medical graduates

Abstract

Objective To get a view of the participation, motivation and barrier of voluntary activities in medical graduates, and to provide valuable advices for improving such behaviors. Methods The convenience sample method was used in medical graduates in 2014 and the total sample was 348. The data of voluntary service were collected by self-designed questionnaire, including whether participating in voluntary service, times, types, motivations and barriers. SPSS 20.0 were used in statistic analysis and data were processed by description analysis and x2 test. Results The effective response rate is 80.7% (281). The proportion of the post graduated students participation in voluntary activities is 65.8% (185), however, only 13.4% (28) claimed such activities more than 3 times. The proportion of participation in male, student leaders and party members were higher than those female, non-student leaders and non-party members, the different is statistically significant (P＜0.05). The proportion of medical related voluntary activities is 52.6%. The primary motivation of voluntary behaviors is social responsibility (30.1%), while the primary obstacle is lack of medium (39.50%) and limitation of personal time and energy (30.0%). Conclusions The participation and persistence of voluntary activity in graduated students are not high enough. The colleges need to strength the organization and management of voluntary activities and focus on social responsible education, inspire and guide the postgraduate students to participate in voluntary activities persistently by using their specialties. Key words: Medical students; Graduate students; Volunteers; Voluntary activities