Effects of COVID-19 pandemic on medical students in Jordanian universities: A multi-center cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background There are serious concerns regarding the effectiveness of medical education in its current format during serious crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective To explore academic, financial, psychological, & hygienic impact on medical students. Methods A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study of students at different medical schools in Jordan. It included both basic and clinical years. Results There were 415 responses. Females constituted 51.8%. Around 50% of the participants were from the 6th year (n = 194, 46.7%). University of Jordan students represented around 40% of the responders. 60% of the students have GPA (Grade Point Average) of less than 3 points. Nearly half of the students indicated that their academic grades were affected during the pandemic. Clinical years’ students (51.0%) were more likely to be negatively affected than students in basic years (36.1%), P value 0.026. Sixty three percent reported that they sanitize their hands before touching eyes, nose, or mouth. More than two thirds (70.4%) of students indicated that their mental health was affected in the pandemic. Financial influence was a major aspect in around 53% of students and 34% of students were not able to pay the university fees due to the pandemic. The pandemic affected the elective training course location of 70.9% of respondents. Mental health was affected in 70.9% of students and 65.1% became more anxious or depressed with no significant difference among gender and academic years (P values 0.256 and 0.516, respectively). Students in the clinical years were more afraid of getting the infection than students in the basic years, however this difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.084). Conclusions Covid-19 Pandemic negatively affected the academic course of the medical students especially at the clinical training years’ level across Jordanian universities. COVID-19 pandemic left a negative impact on psychological & mental health of the students, too, rendering them more anxious, depressed, and afraid of coming to the hospital and handling patients.

Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on Progress Test performance in German speaking countries.

“…We must point out that our findings are not in line with mentioned literature on this topic, which highlights negative impacts of the pandemic on academic performance of medical students 3,4,6 ; on the contrary, our results suggest a sustained performance improvement widely spread across comparison groups, participating faculties and medical disciplines.…”

“…Undergraduate curriculums in medical schools include usually an extensive practical component implying regular contact to patients; students would therefore be put at risk for potential infection if practical lessons were to be held as they were planned before the pandemic 2 . The impact of all these circumstances on the academic performance of medical students has been the subject of research, with differing outcomes: There are studies reporting that student performance worsened 3,4 ; stagnated 5 ; or just changed for specific subjects 6 during the pandemic.…”

Examining Perceived Stress and Coping Strategies of University Students during COVID-19: A Cross-Sectional Study in Jordan

“…A Perceived Stress Scale of 5 items adapted from Cohen, Kamarck, and Mermelstein [ 36 ] was administered to assess how much people perceive recent life events as stressful on a scale of 1 to 5, ranging from “never” to “very often”. An exhaustive literature review also informed how to achieve the objectives of the study related to academic stress (4 items), financial stress (4 items), behavioural stress (4 items), and coping variables (1 item), using adaptions from [ 19 , 37 , 38 , 39 ]. The participants were asked how well they dealt with disruptions in their daily lives caused by COVID-19 compared to others around them, along a scale of 1 to 5, ranging from “not well at all” to “extremely well”; they were also asked to rate course contents and practical courses (1 item for each one) adapted from [ 19 , 40 , 41 ], and rate the academic future (1 item) adapted from [ 41 ].…”

“…Therefore, we used the research instrument from the previous studies on perceived stress and online learning among Jordanian business students. We adopted the items from [ 4 , 15 , 19 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 ]. It is essential to verify the validity and reliability of the constructs and the scale [ 56 ], so the information gathered through the online survey was analysed based on the frequency of business students’ responses, which was expressed as a percentage.…”

Association between Teaching and Learning Related Stressor and Anxiety Level among Medical Students during COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Anxiety disorder is one of the mental health problems reported since the beginning of the pandemic that can affect people of all ages and professsi-ons (Bassi et al, 2021). Based on the previous studies, a medical school has various precipitating factors or stressors that may increase the incidence of stress in students, hence medical students are at high risk of experiencing anxiety disorders, and one of the predisposing stressors is stressor related to teaching and learning (Dhahri et al, 2020;Lasheras et al, 2020;Pokhrel et al, 2020;AL-Husban et al, 2021) In this pandemic situation, universities and students are required to adjust swiftly in making modifications to the teaching and learning system, particularly with an online learning system aimed to reduce the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the university setting. Research in Ireland stated that 5.45% of medical students experienced moderate to severe stress levels during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it has a correlation with their curriculum system that shifted to online (O'Byrne et al, 2021).…”