Predictors of Medical Students' Views toward Research: Insights from a Cross-Cultural Study among Portuguese-Speaking Countries.

Gustavo Correia,Maria Amélia Ferreira,Laura Ribeiro,Andreia Gomes,Silke Weber,Maria Do Rosário Bragança,Margarida Pereira

doi:10.3390/healthcare10020336

Abstract

Developing the skills and interest in scientific research of medical students is crucial to ensuring effective healthcare systems. As such, in this study, we aimed to assess Portuguese-speaking medical students’ attitudes and perceptions toward scientific research and clinical practice, and how they are influenced by individual characteristics and regional indicators. A total of 455 first-year students from three medical schools in three countries (Portugal, Brazil, and Angola) participated in this study by completing a questionnaire. Portuguese students attributed the most importance to scientific skills and were the most confident in their ability to perform these skills. Angolan students were the most motivated to perform research and integrate it into the curriculum, despite having the most negative attitudes and perceiving themselves as having less ability to perform scientific skills. Brazilian students had the least positive attitudes toward science. In Portugal, attitudes depended on gross domestic product (GDP), while in Angola, they were influenced by the type of secondary school attendance. Portuguese students’ perceptions of scientific skills were related to sex, GDP, type of secondary school, and participation in research. In Brazilian and Angolan students, perceptions were associated with age and research participation, respectively. The findings support the need to promote skills and positive attitudes toward scientific research in future physicians, fostering physician-scientists and improving patient care.

Highlights

Active scientific education promotes the full development of medical students and enhances critical appraisal and problem-solving skills, which are needed for excellent clinical practice [14,15,16]
We aimed to assess the attitudes of first-year medical students in three Portuguese-speaking countries toward science and research, motivation to perform research during medical school, importance attributed to scientific skills for clinical practice, and self-perceived ability to perform scientific skills, and how these are influenced by individual and regional indicators
We found that 6.3% of the variability in the importance attributed by Portuguese students to scientific skills in clinical practice was explained by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and sex, being negatively associated with higher GDP and compared to men, women students attributed higher importance to those skills (0.114 points)

Summary

Introduction

Since Flexner’s 1910 report [1], the need to comprehensively integrate the principles of scientific research into medical curricula has been advocated as a vehicle to improve healthcare system quality [2,3,4,5]. Such integration is still poor in medical curricula [6,7], contributing to the exacerbation of the decline in physicians, physician-scientists [8,9,10], and medical students interested or already involved in research worldwide [11,12]. Scientific research helps medical students to develop creativity, leadership [2], critical [20] and communication skills [15], as well as spreading, evolving and applying new medical knowledge [16,21,22]

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Conclusion