A report on student’s perspective on incorporation of research methodology in undergraduate medical curriculum.

Thesis Report.

SUMMARY:

This study is awarded Undergraduate Research Grant by Nepal Health Research Council
(NHRC). This study was carried out to assess the perspective of undergraduate medical
students on incorporating research methodology in the undergraduate medical curriculum.
Since there is increasing interest among the new generation of medical students towards
research, this study aimed to establish this through data and know their perception on
incorporating research methodology in the curriculum itself.
Exposing medical students towards research has benefits like having a paper published in one’s
name, being able to stand out for the competition for residencies, having a better understanding
of diagnostic techniques, and aiding those who aspire to be physician-scientists. Since
developed nations have already taken the initiative to encourage medical students in research,
it’s high time for a virgin country like ours to take initiative to produce manpower that can live
up to the needs of the nation in terms of innovation and research.
This study was conducted among medical students studying under Tribhuvan University and
systematic sampling method was applied for the selection of the respondents. The study tool
was developed on a five-point Likert scale. Frequency is calculated for all the variables and
ordinal regression is carried out for the variable of interest which is the question of
incorporating research methodology in the undergraduate medical curriculum. A P-value less
than 0.05 is considered significant.
The study had 351 respondents. 223 (63.5%) were males and the mean age of the participants
was 22.58 ± 1.585 years. Nearly 84% of students think that research methodology should be
incorporated into the curriculum and 84.9% of the responders believe that getting students
involved in research studies will increase the standard of medical education of the country.
75.5% of the students are interested in learning about study designs and statistical methods if training is provided to them, while, 46.2% of the responders have already attended
webinars/seminars to get oriented towards research methodologies that were conducted by
other organizations. The majority of the students (75.8%) of the students want research
methodology to be incorporated in the pre-clinical phase of medical school. Students who were
interested in reading research articles had 3.085 times more odds of agreeing while increasing
age was associated with a decrease in odds by 0.772 times in agreeing to incorporate research
methodology in the curriculum.
The majority of medical students are interested in being part of research studies. Initiatives that
can back up this interest of a new generation of medical students to establish the concept of
physician-scientist should be taken by the stakeholders. Incorporating research methodology
in the curriculum, in the pre-clinical phase, will be a great support to the interest of medical
students. This will also orient students towards evidence-based practice in their professional
life, improving the patient outcome in long term.