Purpose Medical educators are central in ensuring future doctors have sufficient public health skills. Attitudes, norms, and perceived control about the significance of teaching a subject determines whether or not it is taught and how well. This qualitative study aims to explore medical educators’ perceptions about what factors influence their intention to teach public health in Indonesian undergraduate medical schools.
Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eighteen medical educators from different Indonesian medical schools. Interviews were analyzed thematically using the Theory of Planned Behavior domains: attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control.
Results Five subthemes emerged under these domains: attitudes (defining public health); subjective norms (room in the medical curricula; teaching and assessment); and perceived behaviour control (medical educator confidence; institutional support). Most participants had a limited understanding about the scope of public health. This coupled with an already overcrowded medical curriculum made it challenging for them to incorporate public health into the medical curriculum dominated by clinical and biomedical content. Although believing that public health is important, medical educators were reluctant to incorporate public health because they were not confident incorporating or assessing content.
Conclusion Strong institutional support is to improve public health quality and content in the medical curriculum. Including public health educators in discussions is critical.
Purpose We investigated research barriers among Jordanian medical postgraduates to understand the current context of the local health research landscape and improve scholarly output.
Methods Using a validated questionnaire, Jordanian interns, residents, specialists, and consultants were examined for their perceived attitudes and barriers towards research. Participants were conveniently sampled from public, university, military, and private institutions. Differences in responses were examined using the Student t-test and analysis of variance. Binary logistic regression was utilized to examine predictors of being able to publish.
Results A total of 1,141 Jordanian medical postgraduates were recruited, of which 61.3% were junior postgraduates (i.e., interns and residents in their first 2 years of residency) while 38.7% were senior postgraduates (i.e., senior residents, specialists, and consultants). Around 76.0% of participants had no peer-reviewed publications. Of those with least one publication (n=273), only 31.1% had first authorships. Participants portrayed dominantly positive attitudes towards the importance of research. There were no significant differences between junior and senior postgraduates for overall attitudes (p=0.486) and knowledge barriers scores (p=0.0261). Conversely, senior postgraduates demonstrated higher mean organizational barriers (p<0.001). Seniority (odds ratio [OR], 5.268; 95% confidence interval [CI], 3.341–8.307), age (OR, 1.087; 95% CI, 1.019–1.159), academic standing (OR, 1.730; 95% CI, 1.103–2.715), and confidence (OR, 1.086; 95% CI, 1.009–1.169) were positive predictors of publication in peer reviewed journals.
Conclusion The Jordanian medical research landscape is riddled with all forms of different barriers. The reworking of current and integration of new research training programs are of utmost importance.
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