Assessment of attitudes related to humanization of assistance by medical students

Abstract

Introduction: Typical medical care has been characterized by professional and disease-centered attitudes, with little concern for focusing on the patient’s psychosocial context and expectations. However, the medical care that seeks to more globally encompass the patient’s perspective has shown to bring greater benefits. Objective: To evaluate the attitudes of medical students regarding the physician-patient relationship. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study that evaluated the attitudes of students in the 4th semester of the medical course in relation to patient care based on the application of the Patient-Practitioner Orientation Scale and a questionnaire with sociodemographic and curricular characteristics. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software and the Mann-Whitney test, Kruskal-Wallis test with Dunn’s post hoc, and Chi-square test. Results: A total of 83 medical students participated in the study, with a prevalence of female students (74.7%), and those who declared a family income of less than US$ 2,140 (43.0%), as well as those who professed the Catholic religion (53.0%). The majority of students (85.5%) had attitudes centered on the physician and the disease (mean PPOS scores <4.57), with scores in the caring domain higher than those in the sharing domain. The variables gender, family income, student financial aid, and religion showed a positive association (p≤0.05) with PPOS scores related to patient-centered attitudes. There were no statistically significant associations of PPOS scores with the variables age group, city of origin, undergraduate research activities, extracurricular internships, artistic activities, personal and family history of serious illness, and parental level of schooling. Conclusion: The present study showed that the assessed medical students had attitudes centered on the physician and on the disease, with mean PPOS scores below the range related to attitudes of humanized medicine.