Abstract
Background
Incorporating research in evidence-based medicine is important for the medical fraternity to understand new diseases, apply new treatment modalities and reform health policies. Including research training in the medical curriculum can help undergraduates to build reasoning skills and critical thinking. Prior studies have shown that despite a positive attitude towards research among undergraduate students, there is a shortcoming in implementing research training. This study was planned to assess the attitude of undergraduate medical students toward research in a publicly funded medical college in South India.
Methods
A cross-sectional observational study was carried out among 63 students by using the Attitude Towards Research (ATR) scale, which is a pretested, validated, Likert-type, 32-item questionnaire.
Results
In the present study, 75% of the participants were from the urban population. 85.7% of students were interested in understanding research methodology and 87.3% were interested in attending advanced sessions. Mean ATR scores revealed that the majority of students have an understanding of the usefulness of research (6.03±0.75), showed a positive attitude towards research (5.51±0.95), and understood the relevance of research (4.57±0.63). At the same time, some found difficulty in carrying out research (4.24±1.23) and reported being anxious of the research procedure (4.24±1.01).
Conclusion
Most students are interested in research and want to attend training sessions. Students who attended these sessions earlier displayed a positive attitude towards research, showed interest in advanced research methodology sessions, and found research less challenging compared to their peers. If research methodology is incorporated into the medical undergraduate curriculum, it will have a positive impact on the improvement of the research orientation of the students. Thus, targeted modules should be formulated for medical students during the undergraduate phase.
Keywords:
medical student attitudes, research interest, research training, research barriers, educational interventions, cross-sectional study, Hyderabad, IndiaReferences
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