Evaluation of Faculty Members and Trainees Opinions about Quality of Ambulatory Medical Education, Sari, Iran, 2012

Background: Ambulatory medicine is one ofthe most important parts of medicaleducation. According to its special effect onprofessional future of physicians, ambulatorymedical education (AME) is now criticallyimportant and so many studies have beenperformed to survey its quality and effectivefactors on quality improvement it. There isdeficiency in methodological studies andevidences about AME in the country. The aimof this study was to investigate the quality ofAME in the viewpoint of faculty membersand trainees of medical faculty ofMazandaran University of Medical Sciences,Iran.Methods: This was a descriptive, crosssectionalstudy. The study s populationconsisted of students, residents and clinicalfaculty members of Mazandaran University ofMedical Sciences who were included bysystematic sampling. The tool for datacollection was a self administeredquestionnaire consisted of 27 questions aboutdemographic and educational variables ofparticipants, and their opinions about qualityof AME in clinics of the university. Items ofthe quality of AME consisted ofenvironmental conditions, independentactivities of the trainees, instructors supervision, and teaching of ambulatoryspecific skills. Validity of the questionnairewas controlled by expertise consultation(content validity), and its reliability by test –retest (r=0.85). Data was analyzed using Spss13 software.Results: Totally response rate was 70% (36faculties, 144 medical students and residents).Mean age of faculties, students and residentswere 43.6±8.7 and 25±3.6 years respectivelyof faculties 32% and of students 60% werefemale. Majority of the trainees (84%)assessed the quality of AME as unsatisfactoryand had negative attitude towards it, whilemajority of the faculties (68%) had positiveattitudes toward the quality of AME. Therewas no significant difference in quality ofAME among teaching departments inopinions of participants. Attitude of juniortrainees was even more negative. Opinions ofthe faculty members and the trainees weresimilar about inappropriate physicalenvironment of ambulatory clinics, and lackof scientific sources but there was significantdifference between the opinions aboutindependent activities of trainees in clinics(p=0.000), instruction of rational drugsprescription (p=0.000); management (p=0.004), and supervision of facultymembers (p=0.000).Conclusion: The overall attitudes of ourparticipants (especially trainees) towards thecurrent quality of ambulatory medicaleducation were negative, mainly because ofimpossibility of independent activities fortrainees, low supervision of faculties,insufficient teaching of rational drugprescription, differential diagnosis, andmanagement.

کلیدواژه ها:

Ambulatory Medicine Teaching ، Attending ، Student ، Attitude