Undergraduate medical students' knowledge about principles of research and publications

AUTHOR(s) : DebBarma Antara1 , Mahanta Putul2 , Thakuria KD3
DOI No. : 10.31741/ijhrmlp.v4.i2.2018.22

ABSTRACT :
Research makes students better scientists, a core part of being a physician, and better prepares them to lead during residency and in practice. It is widely recognized that research is vital for development of medical education. Studies on the benefits of research, over the medical education are rare. Materials and Methods: It was a cross sectional descriptive study. Sample size was 100 and was randomly picked up from the undergraduate student community who were in their basic science stage of medical studies at Malabar Medical College and Hospital, Calicut in the year 2015. To determine knowledge about principles of research, participants filled a pretext and pretested questionnaire. Informed consent was taken. The data thus obtained was analyzed using MS Excel. Results: 31(31%) students feel confident in interpreting and writing a research paper; 20(20%) students say yes that they have participated in a research project; 3(3%) said that they have written a scientific paper; 73(73%) students feel lack of mentor to be the cause of no publication; 59(59%) participants says thta they can plan and conduct a research project and write a scientific paper while 60(60%) students feel that lack of facility is the cause of no publication or lack of research participations. Lack of fund as root cause of no scientific research was felt by 64(64%). 67(67%) participants say that they lack of required knowledge of research methodology. Conclusion: With the limited resources of this study, our findings will have highlighted low to moderate level of knowledge of undergraduate medical students in principles of research methodology and the important impact of research methodology workshops. These findings can be utilized for future health research planning to improve the situation in the field of medical education in India.

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