COMPARISON OF AWARENESS AND INTEREST OF RESEARCH IN DIFFERENT YEARS OF FOUNDATION UNIVERSITY MEDICAL COLLEGE, ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN

Abstract

Objective: To compare the awareness and interest of research among different years of MBBS students at Foundation University Medical College, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Study Design: Cross-sectional study.

Place and Duration of Study: Foundation University Medical College (FUMC), 04 months (March-July 2023).

Methods: Ethical Approval was obtained by the ethical review committee of FUMC. A self-structured, pre-tested questionnaire was used for data collection from 255 students through a random stratified sampling technique. Awareness or knowledge was classified into two groups: good and poor knowledge expressed in percentages while attitude or interest in research was measured on a Likert scale and scores were categorized accordingly. A Chi-square test was applied in order to determine the association of awareness and interest in research among different academic years of MBBS.

Results: Total 255 MBBS students participated in the research, 51 from each academic year. Out of them, 135 were female and 120 were male. The interest of students in research significantly increased with increasing levels of academic year with a maximum number of students interested in research from the final year (78%) followed by second year (73%); (p=0.001). The awareness of students in research significantly improved with increasing levels of academic year with a maximum awareness shown by fourth year students (92%) followed by fifth year (78%); (p=0.001).

Conclusion: More than half of the students had good understanding of research and they displayed a positive attitude towards it. This is a promising finding as it suggests that students were not only knowledgeable about research but also had a positive outlook towards it. However, despite the positive attitude towards research, there may be several factors that prevented many students from conducting research. The majority of the students who participated in research projects were from the fourth and final year of because it was a mandatory part of their academic curriculum.