Gender awareness among the undergraduate medical students: A cross sectional study from Hyderabad, India

Abstract

Background: Physician trainees need to have robust gender awareness for better professional relationships and patient outcomes. A cross-sectional study was conducted among undergraduate (UG) medical students (MBBS) of a medical college in Hyderabad, India, in November 2022, to assess their gender sensitivity (GS) and gender-role ideologies. Methods: A pretested, structured English questionnaire was used for the study, to compute the Nijmegen Gender Awareness Scale in Medicine (N-GAMS) of the participants. Results: The mean age of the students was 20.51 years, with the majority being women (112, 61.2%). The mean GS score was 3.11, while the mean scores for gender-role ideology towards patients (GRIP) and gender-role ideology towards doctors (GRID) were 2.56 and 2.56, respectively. In the adjusted analysis, a significantly better GS score was seen among medical students from urban backgrounds. Significantly more egalitarian GRIP was found among women, participants from urban backgrounds, and among those whose mothers were employed. Significantly more egalitarian GRID was found among women and participants whose mothers were employed. There was a significant negative, but low, correlation between the GS domain and the GRIP (r = - 0.241; p < 0.001) and GRID (r = - 0.192; p = 0.009) scores. There was a high, positive correlation between GRID and GRIP (r = 0.812; p < 0.001). Conclusion: Gender awareness is relatively low among Indian medical students and lower still among male students. It was higher among women, particularly among those whose mothers were employed and those who were from urban areas.