Satisfaction Survey of Community Medicine Course for Postgraduate Year One Medical Students

Abstract

Objectives: This study evaluated a one-month community-based training program for the first year postgraduate medical students (PGY-1) by measuring learning satisfaction and demonstrated three facilitating factors of learning. Three assumptions of learning satisfaction in this study: 1) the community training in a community-based site is more appropriate than in a hospital-based site, 2) learning satisfaction is higher in the community-based group than in the hospital-based group and 3) learning satisfaction is higher in the high exposure group than in the low exposure group. Methods: We collected data with structured questionnaires from August 2003 to June 2004. We classified the training courses according to training site (community-based vs hospital-based group), level of exposure to patients (high exposure vs low exposure group), and level of subjective responsibility of student (full responsibility, partial responsibility and minimal responsibility groups). Learning satisfaction (score 1-5) with the program courses was compared among groups. Results: A total of 73 from 102 (71.57%) PGY-1 medical students participated in the community medicine training program for one-month. All of them completed the same courses. The 29 withdrawers were omitted due to incomplete data. The training programs in the community-based group were significantly higher satisfied score than those in the hospital-based group (3.53±1.05 vs 3.30±1.04, t=2.87, p=0.004). The training programs in the high exposure group had higher score than those in the low exposure group (3.58±0.93 vs 3.25±1.12, t=4.921, p＜0.001). The training programs in the high exposure and community-based group had higher score (3.85±0.56) than those in the high exposure and hospital-based group (3.33±0.86), the low exposure and community-based group (3.27±0.99) and the low exposure and hospital-based group (3.15±1.26) (p＜0.05). Learning satisfaction differed significantly among the three responsibility groups. The full responsibility group had higher scores than the partial responsibility group and the minimal responsibility group (3.73±1.02, 3.50±0.71, 3.21±1.07, F=23.96, p＜0.001). Conclusion: Training courses that provide students with more opportunity of exposure and amount of responsibility to patients in a community-based site are recommended for PGY-1 medical students.