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Positive impact of COVID-19 on career choice in pediatric medical students: a longitudinal study.

ABSTRACT: Background:On March 11th, 2020, the WHO made the assessment that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) could be characterized as a pandemic. Medical students experienced a greater degree of anxiety and psychological stress than during previous pandemics. Negative emotions were related to decreased medical career interest, increased career choice regret and dropout rates in medical students, which affected academic and professional development. The goal of this study was to investigate the impact of the current COVID-19 outbreak on the career preferences of pediatric medical students and to explore the underlying factors contributing to it. Methods:A prospective, longitudinal study was conducted among all 120 pediatric medical students from Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University on November 23rd, 2019, and February 21st, 2020 using a 7-item online questionnaire about career choice. Results:A total of 106 (41 male and 65 female) students with a mean age of 21 years consented to participate in this study. The response rate was 100% in November 2019 and 98.1% in February 2020. Since the outbreak, career choices to practice medicine or pediatrics did not drop significantly, decreasing by only 4.3% and 2.2%, respectively. There was a positive impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on strengthening 66.7% of students' beliefs and choices to become good pediatricians (P<0.001). Only 14 students (13.5%) thought that COVID-19 had a negative impact on their career choices, but the majority of them were in the 3rd (28.6%) and 4th (64.3%) years of medical education and had insufficient knowledge about the hospital environment and clinics. Conclusions:The outbreak of COVID-19 might have an overall positive impact on career choice by strengthening students' belief and choice to become good doctors and may decrease the choice regret and drop rates of the next generation of doctors. Special attention should be paid to students with insufficient clinical experience. Good protection for students, sharing outstanding stories regarding fighting the pandemic, and innovations of needs-based curriculum could be helpful during this pandemic. Future studies are warranted to confirm these findings.

SUBMITTER: Hu L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7347769 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Positive impact of COVID-19 on career choice in pediatric medical students: a longitudinal study.

Hu Liyuan L Wu Hao H Zhou Wenhao W Shen Jianqing J Qiu Wenwei W Zhang Ruo R Wu Jingyan J Chai Yiming Y

Translational pediatrics 20200601 3

<h4>Background</h4>On March 11<sup>th</sup>, 2020, the WHO made the assessment that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) could be characterized as a pandemic. Medical students experienced a greater degree of anxiety and psychological stress than during previous pandemics. Negative emotions were related to decreased medical career interest, increased career choice regret and dropout rates in medical students, which affected academic and professional development. The goal of this study was to inves ...[more]

PMID: 32775243

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Project description:ObjectivesThe Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic disrupted medical student education, particularly in New York City (NYC). We aimed to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical students' residency choices.MethodsThe authors conducted a cross-sectional survey of medical students in all years of study at four NYC medical schools (Columbia, Cornell, NYU, and SUNY Downstate). The survey was fielded from 19 Aug 2020 to 21 Sep 2020. Survey questions included items assessing COVID-19 impact on residency choices, personal impact of COVID-19, residency/specialty choices, and factors influencing these choices.ResultsA total of 2310 students received the survey, with 547 (23.7%) providing partial responses and 212 (9.2%) providing valid responses for our primary analysis. 59.0% of participants thought that COVID-19 influenced their choice of residency/specialty, with 0.9% saying the influence was to a great extent, 22.2% to some extent, and 35.8% very little. On multivariable analysis, factors that were independently associated with COVID-19 impacting residency choice included low debt ($1 to $99,999: adjOR 2.23, 95%CI 1.02-5.03) compared with no debt and Other race/ethnicity (adjOR 0.26, 95%CI 0.10-0.63) compared with White race/ethnicity. On secondary analysis of all participants answering survey items for logistic regression regardless of survey completion, direct personal impact of COVID-19 was significantly associated with COVID-19 impacting specialty choice (adjOR 1.90, 95%CI 1.04-3.52). Moreover, 24 students (11.6%) reported a change in their top residency choice from before to during/after COVID-19, citing concerns about frontline work, work-life balance, and risk of harm.ConclusionsOur study found that 3 in 5 (59.0%) participants felt that COVID-19 impacted their residency choice, with 11.6% of respondents explicitly changing their top specialty choice. Investigating the impact of the pandemic on medical student residency considerations is crucial to understand how medical career outlooks may change in the future.

Project description:BackgroundThe undergraduate program of psychiatry has been widely established in recent years to improve the education and recruitment of psychiatrists in China. We aim to investigate the career choice of medical students majoring in psychiatry in China and the influential factors.MethodThis multicenter study was conducted in 26 medical schools in China from May to October of 2019. Participants included 4610 medical students majoring in psychiatry and 3857 medical students majoring in clinical medicine. Multivariable logistic regression was used to investigate the influential factors of students' choices of psychiatry at matriculation and as a career.Results44.08% of psychiatry majored students gave psychiatry as a first choice at matriculation, and 56.67% of them would choose psychiatry as a career, which was in sharp contrast to the proportion of clinical medicine majored students who would choose psychiatry as a career (0.69%). Personal interest (59.61%), suggestions from family members (27.96%), and experiencing mental problems (23.19%) were main reasons for choosing psychiatry major at matriculation. Personal interest (odds ratio [OR] = 2.12, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.87-2.40), experiencing a psychiatry clerkship (OR = 1.99, 95% CI = 1.28-3.08), being female (OR = 1.50, 95% CI = 1.30-1.68), experiencing mental problems (OR = 1.33, 95% CI = 1.28-1.56), and suggestions from family members (OR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.08-1.46) correlated positively with students' choice of psychiatry as career. Students who lacked psychiatry knowledge (OR = 0.49, 95% CI = 0.29-0.85) or chose psychiatry because of lower admission scores (OR = 0.80, 95% CI = 0.63-0.97) were less likely to choose psychiatry as a career.ConclusionMore than half of psychiatry majored medical school students planned to choose psychiatry as their career, whereas very few students in the clinic medicine major would make this choice. Increasing students' interest in psychiatry, strengthening psychiatry clerkships, and popularizing psychiatric knowledge are modifiable factors to increase the psychiatry career intention. The extent to which medical students' attitudes toward psychiatry can be changed through medical school education and greater exposure to psychiatry will need further investigation.

Project description:BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic is found to affect the mental health of the population. Undergraduate medical students are especially prone to mental health disorders and hence could be more vulnerable to the impact of the pandemic.MethodsA prospective longitudinal study was conducted on 217 undergraduate medical students in a medical college at Chennai, India. Depression, anxiety, and stress levels were recorded using Depression Anxiety Stress Scale 21 Items (DASS21) before and during the COVID-19 outbreak in India in December 2019 and June 2020, respectively. In the follow-up survey, in addition to DASS21, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index to assess sleep quality and a self-administered questionnaire to assess the impact of COVID-19 related stressors were used. The self-administered questionnaire assessed the status of COVID-19 testing, interactions with COVID-19 patients, self-perceived levels of concerns and worries related to academics (COVID-19-AA (academic apprehensions)) and those pertaining to the self and family/friends (COVID-19-GA (general apprehensions)). Cross-sectional and longitudinal comparison of overall scores of depression, anxiety, and stress and scores stratified by gender, year of study, place of residence and monthly family income were performed. Predictors for depression, anxiety, and stress during COVID-19 were investigated using adjusted binary logistic regression analysis and results were expressed as adjusted odds ratio with 95% confidence interval (CI). A P value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.ResultsThe average scores of depression, anxiety, and stress during the baseline survey were 7.55 ± 7.86, 4.6 ± 6.19 and 7.31 ± 7.34 with the prevalence (95% Cl) of 33.2% [27-39.9%], 21.2% [16-27.2%] and 20.7% [15.5-26.7%]; in follow-up survey, the mean scores were 8.16 ± 8.9, 6.11 ± 7.13 and 9.31 ± 8.18 with the prevalence being 35.5% [29.1-42.2%], 33.2% [27-39.9%] and 24.9% [19.3-31.2%] for depression, anxiety, and stress respectively. There was a significant increase in both the prevalence and levels of anxiety and stress (P < 0.001), with depression remaining unchanged during COVID-19, irrespective of gender, year of study, place of residence and family's monthly income. Poor sleep quality, higher levels of baseline depression, anxiety, and stress, higher COVID-19-GA, COVID-19 patients in family/friends and direct interactions with COVID-19 patients were found to be significant predictors of negative mental health in undergraduate medical students. COVID-19-AA was not significantly associated with depression, anxiety, and stress.ConclusionThe COVID-19 pandemic appears to negatively affect the mental health of the undergraduate medical students with the prevalence and levels of anxiety and stress being increased, and depression symptoms remaining unaltered. Addressing and mitigating the negative effect of COVID-19 on the mental health of this population is crucial.

Dataset Information

Positive impact of COVID-19 on career choice in pediatric medical students: a longitudinal study.

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Positive impact of COVID-19 on career choice in pediatric medical students: a longitudinal study.

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