Habibeh Ahmadipour; Diana Hajipour
Abstract
Background: Online social presence is one of the main contributors which has a significant impact on student's academic performance.Objectives: The present study aimed to assess the online social presence among medical students using the Persian Version of the Online Social Presence Questionnaire (OSPQ) ...
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Background: Online social presence is one of the main contributors which has a significant impact on student's academic performance.Objectives: The present study aimed to assess the online social presence among medical students using the Persian Version of the Online Social Presence Questionnaire (OSPQ) after determining its psychometric properties.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 303 medical students at Kerman University of Medical Sciences in 2021. The participants were selected through quota sampling. A two-part online questionnaire containing demographic data and the Persian version of the Online Social Presence Questionnaire (OSPQ) was used for data collection. Exploratory and Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using SPSS version 20.0 and LISREL version 8.80. Internal consistency of the Persian version was determined. ANOVA, Independent T-test, and multiple linear regression were also used. The significance level was considered as 0.05.Results: Out of 303 medical students, 63.7 percent were female with a mean age of 22.83±2.84 years. The mean score of the social identity subscale (P = 0.001) and the total score (P = 0.03) was significantly higher in females. Also, the mean of the intimacy subscale was significantly higher in interns and basic sciences students compared to pre-clinical students. (P = 0.006) The Cronbach alpha coefficient ranged from 0.70 to 0.93 for the whole scale and its subscales. The factor loading of all items was at an acceptable level ranging from 0.4 to 0.95. Almost all of the goodness of fit indices had excellent levels.Conclusion: Our study revealed that the Persian version of OSPQ is a simple, valid, and reliable tool to assess medical students’ sense of social presence in an online environment.
Saeideh Moslemizadeh; Habibeh Ahmadipour
Abstract
Background: Academic underachievement is a growing phenomenon among medical students, influenced by several factors.Objectives: This study investigated the relationship between academic underachievement and problematic cell phone use among medical students at Kerman University of Medical Sciences.Methods: ...
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Background: Academic underachievement is a growing phenomenon among medical students, influenced by several factors.Objectives: This study investigated the relationship between academic underachievement and problematic cell phone use among medical students at Kerman University of Medical Sciences.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 300 medical students at KUMS during the academic year 2019. The Persian version of Problematic Cellular Phone Use Questionnaire was used for data collection. Also, the demographic data of the students were recorded, and they were asked to declare if they had a history of academic underachievement in the previous year. Data were analyzed by SPSS software version 20.0 using Chi-square test and logistic regression.Results: The mean age of medical students was 22.41±2.6 years, and the majority (74.3 %) of them were female. The chance of academic underachievement was 6.37 times higher in medical students who have problematic cellular phone use compared to those without it (OR=6.37, P=0.001). Also, this chance was 4.45 times higher in medical students who had a history of psychological disorders compared to those without (OR=4.45, P=0.02).Conclusion: The current study revealed that the chance of academic underachievement was higher in medical students with problematic cellular phone use and a history of psychological disorders. Given that academic underachievement is not uncommon, its related factors must be appropriately identified and intervened on time.
Habibeh Ahmadipour
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic, which has startled all of us, caused rapid and major changes in the higher education system of Iran, especially in the field of medical education. Although since 2001 the education system is trying to use virtual /distance education (1), until the start of the pandemic, e-learning ...
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The COVID-19 pandemic, which has startled all of us, caused rapid and major changes in the higher education system of Iran, especially in the field of medical education. Although since 2001 the education system is trying to use virtual /distance education (1), until the start of the pandemic, e-learning had a low share in the educational programs of most medical universities and was considered as a less important secondary educational method. Since controlling the pandemic requires avoiding face-to-face training, e-learning is the most important way to provide educational content and holding courses in almost all medical universities of Iran.According to the literature, e-learning is faced with five challenges related to the university, professors, students, e-learning systems, and e-classroom environment (2). However, there are studies which mentioned to four categories of challenges, including technical and technological (weakness in telecommunications infrastructure), teachers and learners (unfamiliarity with the structure and technology used for e-learning), ethical challenges (weakness of existing technologies for fraud detection), and problems related to psychological issues (technology-related anxieties such as power and internet outages and system crashes) (3). Since the onset of the pandemic in Iran was simultaneous with the start of the new educational semester, there was no opportunity for proper planning. Therefore, most of the medical universities focused their planning, policies, and activities on finding proper educational platforms (while having eyes on costs, convenience, etc.) to provide educational content (either online or offline), creating or modifying the infrastructure of distance/electronic/online education, and providing intensive training courses for familiarizing university teachers with these methods of education and Learning Management Systems (LMS). It seems that less attention is paid to students, who are the other side of e-learning systems. We, unfortunately, ignored that a sudden shift from an almost complete face-to-face education to complete e-learning creates challenges for students. It was assumed that, if correct educational content (according to educational objectives) be provided correctly by the professors and through a proper communication path, students would receive the content correctly.Although nowadays students are Millennials or from the Z generation and we name them as digital citizens or the Internet generation, however, their ability to use e-learning systems is different. For face-to-face instruction, it was emphasized that students' differences should be taken into account to increase the effectiveness of the education, butthis has been overlooked in our current e-learning systems, which may be due to the rapid and forced transformation from face-to-face to the electronic methods.Given that likely, the coronavirus will be with us for at least the next two years, so students' challenges in e-learning and related factors should be addressed. If the current situation is properly understood, it would be possible to take timely and effective steps to provide evidence-based interventions for effective electronic training and evaluations.
Habibeh Ahmadipour
Ali Akbar Rohani; Reyhaneh Ebrahimi; Habibeh Ahmadipour
Abstract
Background The patient-centered approach improves the quality of health care. Promoting this approach will increase the patients’ satisfaction and improve interpersonal skills among health care providers. Objectives The aim of the current study was to compare the viewpoints of interns toward the ...
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Background The patient-centered approach improves the quality of health care. Promoting this approach will increase the patients’ satisfaction and improve interpersonal skills among health care providers. Objectives The aim of the current study was to compare the viewpoints of interns toward the patient-centered approach in the beginning and the end of the internship at the Kerman University of Medical Sciences (KUMS). Methods This longitudinal study was carried out at KUMS between March 2017 and July 2018. All medical students who had passed the internship entrance exam were selected through a census. The Persian version of the patient-practitioner orientation scale (PPOS) was completed at the start and the end of the internship. This instrument has 18 items in two 9-item subscales: sharing and caring. The minimum and maximum scores were 1 to 6, respectively. The higher the score, the more the patient-centered orientation. The data were analyzed by SPSS using independent and paired -tests, ANOVA, and multiple linear regression. Results The mean scores of PPOS were 3.92 ± 0.42 and 3.86 ± 0.37 at the beginning and the end of the internship, respectively. This difference was not statistically significant. The mean score of the caring subscale significantly increased during internship but no significant change was found in the mean score of the sharing subscale. Conclusions The results of our study showed that the patient-centered attitude toward patient caring improved during the internship in the majority of interns but no significant improvement was found in terms of patient sharing. Significant progress can be made in the quality of physician-patient communication and patient satisfaction if necessary training programs are run on patient-centeredness.
Rostam Yazdani; Elaheh Yazdan-Panah; Hajar Shafian; Habibeh Ahmadi-Pour
Abstract
Background and Objectives Self-assessment of clinical performance in a clinical setting is defined as the process of collecting internal and external data, interpreting the data on personal performance, and comparing them with a set of standards. The current study aimed at analyzing self-assessment of ...
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Background and Objectives Self-assessment of clinical performance in a clinical setting is defined as the process of collecting internal and external data, interpreting the data on personal performance, and comparing them with a set of standards. The current study aimed at analyzing self-assessment of clinical skills among medical interns at Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran, and determining the relationship between practical skills and theoretical knowledge. Methods The current cross sectional, descriptive, analytical study was conducted in 2014 on a total of 141 interns from Kerman University of Medical Sciences selected via census sampling. Data were collected using a checklist including the main procedural skills of medical students and analyzed using the Mann-Whitney and the Kruskal-Wallis tests with SPSS. Results The majority of participants were female (n = 79; 56%). The mean score of males` clinical skills was higher than that of females, and the difference was statistically significant (P = 0.001). Analysis of the relationship between internship duration and clinical skill scores showed that the mean score of interns who had completed 6 months of their internship was higher than that of the ones who had not; the difference was statistically significant (P = 0.001). Conclusions Since the performance of future general practitioners highly depends on their learning and mastery of clinical skills, acquisition of these essential skills during internships is an important objective of medical students. Correct and complete training of clinical skills, especially during internships, is integrated into the medical curriculum, although its implementation requires careful planning and compliance with the medical standards.
Mohammad Mahdi Hayatbakhsh-Abbasi; Gholam Reza Sepehri; Habibeh Ahmadipour; Sina Bakhshaei
Volume 13, Issue 1 , April 2016, , Pages 34-40
Abstract
Background & Objective: Rational prescription of medicine by physicians is one of the most important factors in the correct and complete treatment of patients The aim of this study was to evaluate prescription writing patterns of graduating interns for common illnesses in Kerman University of Medical ...
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Background & Objective: Rational prescription of medicine by physicians is one of the most important factors in the correct and complete treatment of patients The aim of this study was to evaluate prescription writing patterns of graduating interns for common illnesses in Kerman University of Medical Sciences Iran in 2013 Methods: In this descriptive crosssectional study the prescription writing pattern of 50 interns of Kerman University of Medical Sciences were evaluated A written exam assessing prescription writing on 30 common clinical cases was held Data were analyzed using SPSS software Results: The average number of items per each prescription was 207 The frequency of medicines prescribed by their generic name and from the World Health Organization (WHO) list of essential medicines was 968% and 971% respectively Drug interaction was observed in 56% of prescriptions The frequency of prescriptions containing antibiotics injectable medicines and corticosteroids was 472% 93% and 65% respectively The most common groups prescribed were antibiotics and analgesics Conclusion: Based on the WHO recommended standards the prescription of antibiotics by interns of Kerman University of Medical Sciences was irrational and inappropriate Therefore educational interventions are necessary to improve prescription writing patterns among interns
Habibeh Ahmadipour; Reza Vafadar
Volume 10, Issue 3 , October 2013, , Pages 335-342
Abstract
Background & Objective: Studies indicated that medical student abuse is likely to have a considerable negative effect Compared to nonabused students abused students reported more anxiety depression difficulty with learning thoughts of dropping out and alcohol use problem Other studies showed that ...
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Background & Objective: Studies indicated that medical student abuse is likely to have a considerable negative effect Compared to nonabused students abused students reported more anxiety depression difficulty with learning thoughts of dropping out and alcohol use problem Other studies showed that stress associated with being abused negatively impacted on career decisions Methods: This was a crosssectional study carried out by Medical Educational Development Office of Kerman University of Medical Sciences Kerman Iran All medical students in clinical course were selected through census method Students viewpoint towards treatment in clinical setting evaluated using a questionnaire The validity of the questionnaire confirmed by a number of experts and its reliability determined using a pilot study with Cronbachs alpha 067 Results: One hundred sixty eight questionnaires were completed Medical student abuse was reported by 93% of the respondents Verbal abuse was the most frequently experienced abuse followed by academic abuse gender discrimination and physical abuse Physicians residents were the most often reported as abusers The most frequent emotional response to abuse was sadness (97%) Conclusion: Experience of abuse in clinical setting is common among medical students To improve the learning environment medical educators need to take action to resolve this serious issue
Habibeh Ahmadipour; Mohammad Javad Zahedi; Seyed Ali Mohammad Arabzadeh
Volume 8, Issue 2 , January 2012, , Pages 182-188
Abstract
Background & Objectives: Even so much of the knowledge and skills of medical students is aquiered during clinical course in many educational systems students are kept away from clinical setting during their first academic years Methods: This study was an interventional study carried out by Educational ...
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Background & Objectives: Even so much of the knowledge and skills of medical students is aquiered during clinical course in many educational systems students are kept away from clinical setting during their first academic years Methods: This study was an interventional study carried out by Educational Development Office in the school of Medicine in 2009 All Second semester students were selected through census method Students attitudes towards medical profession were evaluated using a questionnaire The validity of the questionnaire confirmed by a number of experts and its reliability was determined using Cronbachs Alpha 0 65 Early clinical exposure course was held for subjects and within two weeks after the course they were asked to complete the questionnaire again Each question was rated using Likert scale and mean scores of each student before and after the intervention were calculated and compared by using paired ttest Results: From 85 students 62 ones completed the questionnaire before and after the course From all 36 ones (58 %) were female and 26 ones (42 %) were male Mean age of students was 1912(± 073) years and their mean average of the first semester was 1624(± 11) There was no significant difference between the students attitude toward medical profession before and after the course Conclusion: Although the present study couldnt detect significant change in students attitude toward medical profession the results of other studies show that early clinical exposure provides an opportunity for the students to learn subjects practically and beyond mere theory
