Perception of medical student regarding factors influencing the decision to serve in rural health services of Uttarakhand

Abstract

Many countries in the developing world are plagued with challenges of inadequate and inequitable distribution of the health workforce. The Paucity of qualified health workers in rural areas is a critical challenge for India’s Health Sector. In view of the continuing challenges of Physician shortage in India, an understanding of our medical students’ attitude and perception towards rural medical practices is essential for appropriate planning of human resources. To assess the attitude and perception of medical students towards rural medical practices and identified the associated factors in order to fill these information gaps. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 282 MBBS students of the Government Medical College in Uttarakhand state, India. First, Third and Fifth semesters MBBS students were the study participants. Participants were enrolled by convenient sampling method. Ethical approval was sought and obtained from the Institutional Ethics Committee. Data was entered and analyzed with SPSS Software Version 22. Among 282 MBBS Students, 68% females showed willingness to work in rural area compared to 57.6% of males. All the reasons for willingness as well as non-willingness to work in rural areas of Uttarakhand had statistically significant difference. Medical student’s attitude and perception to work in rural health services need much improvement towards positive side by intervention and implementation by joint collaborative efforts of Medical Education Department, Health department and State Government.