A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY ON MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE OF STUDENTS JOINING MBBS

Background: Medical profession is a much chosen profession today. It is a noble profession, which requires a great deal of commitment. Ignorance of medical students or doctors can endanger the lives they handle. The present study attempts to find out the medical knowledge of students joining MBBS and the association between medical knowledge and family members being doctors, type of admission (government, management, NRI) and reason for joining the course. Methods: The present study was carried out among 100 first year MBBS students of Azeezia medical college, Meeyannoor, Kollam on the first day of the joining of MBBS course. The study was done in the month of September 2014.Data was collected using a predesigned questionnaire. It consisted of 50 questions related to medical knowledge. Questions were all of multiple-choice type. Data was collected and was analyzed using SPSS software (20 th version). Chi square test was used to find out the association p value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Out of 92 students, the performance of 44 (47.8%) was good (score 40-50), 38 (41.3%) were average (score 30-39) and 10 (10.9%) were poor (below 30). 31(33.7%) were male and 61(66.3%) were female. Among the 92 students, 44(47.8%) were admitted under government seat, 32(34.8%) under management quota and 16(17.4%) under NRI seat. The relationship between type of admission and performance was highly significant (p = 0.000). The reason in 88(95.7%) students for joining MBBS was by their own interest, 1(1.1%) under peer pressure and 3(3.3%) on family interest. We found that the relationship between reason for joining MBBS and performance was significant (p=0.03). Conclusions: Our study showed that the medical knowledge among students joining MBBS was average. There was no relationship between parents being doctors or family members being in the medical profession and medical knowledge of students. Those who joined on their own interest rather than under peer or family pressure had better knowledge than others It was sad to notice that some of the students were not aware of the duration of the course and many of them were ignorant of even the basic things.