Patients’ perceptions about medical students’ involvement in their health care at a teaching hospital in Jordan: A cross sectional study (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND Medical students’ involvement in patients’ care varies due to patient’s willingness, as some consider it as an invasion of their privacy and exposure of their disease status. Thus, exploring patients' perceptions and attitudes towards this interaction should be thoroughly investigated. OBJECTIVE To better understand the attitude of Jordanian patients towards the presence of medical students’ during their consultations and provide evidence-based data to improve the training of future doctors. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Jordan University Hospital using a structured questionnaire to interview 420 patients from the out-patients’ clinics of the departments; Internal Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics, and Surgery. Descriptive and multivariate data analysis was conducted using SPSS (version 25.0). RESULTS Of the patients interviewed, 94% were aware that they were in a teaching hospital, 92% approved the existence of medical students’ during their consultation and 80% accepted to be observed and examined by medical student in the presence of a senior doctor. Almost 83% of the patients believed that their consent should be obtained first and 58% of them indicated that the students asked for consent prior to interacting with them. Around 64% of the participants indicated that the maximum acceptable number of students during the consultation should not exceed 2-3, 64% had no preferred gender to interact with and 59% had no preferred training year. CONCLUSIONS Patients showed an overall positive stance towards the involvement of medical students’ in their healthcare. The majority were delighted to see medical students’ while some expressed concerns over their privacy due to the large number of students and because some do not ask for their consent. It is essential to apply medical ethics practices together with patient centered approach.