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Factors influencing to study medicine: a survey of first-year medical students from India

Korean Journal of Medical Education 2019;31(1):61-71.
Published online: March 1, 2019

Department of Biochemistry, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India

Corresponding Author: Prakash Somi Sankaran (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0538-1001) Department of Biochemistry, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India Tel: +91.416.228.4267 Fax: +91.416.226.2788 email: sspcmc@cmcvellore.ac.in, sspkmc2k@yahoo.com
• Received: July 8, 2018   • Revised: November 5, 2018   • Accepted: December 24, 2018

© The Korean Society of Medical Education. All rights reserved.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Factors influencing to study medicine: a survey of first-year medical students from India
Korean J Med Educ. 2019;31(1):61-71.   Published online March 1, 2019
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Factors influencing to study medicine: a survey of first-year medical students from India
Korean J Med Educ. 2019;31(1):61-71.   Published online March 1, 2019
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Factors influencing to study medicine: a survey of first-year medical students from India
Factors influencing to study medicine: a survey of first-year medical students from India
Characteristic Frequency (%)
Age (completed yr)
 17 5 (5)
 18 47 (49)
 19 28 (29)
 20 15 (16)
 21 2 (2)
Gender
 Male 40 (41)
 Female 57 (59)
Place of permanent residence
 Village (rural) 8 (8)
 Town or city (urban) 87 (90)
 Abroad 2 (2)
Family members as doctors
 Yes 59 (61)
 No 38 (39)
Those who had family members as doctors (n=59)
 At least one first degree relative as doctor 30 (51)
 Other than first degree relative as doctor 29 (49)
Variable Frequency (%)
No. of attempts to join MBBS
 One 64 (66)
 More than one 33 (34)
Timing of decision to study medicine
 Never or not sure 18 (19)
 Before class X 46 (47)
 After class X 33 (34)
Career counselling
 Yes 26 (27)
 No 70 (73)
Career options―only MBBS or others
 Only MBBS 53 (55)
 Others 44 (45)
Alternative choice if unsuccessful this time
 Other options 39 (41)
 Wait for another year to join MBBS 55 (59)
Most influential person to decide to join MBBS
 Self 32 (33)
 Other than self 64 (67)
Self-declared maturity to take career decisions after school education
 Not mature (strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree) 29 (30)
 Mature (agree, strongly agree) 68 (70)
Factors Items Communalities Factor loading Cronbach’s α
Personal growth factor Opportunity to achieve financial stability 0.610 0.725 0.791
Opportunity to settle in urban areas 0.512 0.709
Wide career options after MBBS 0.474 0.687
Prestige and respect in society 0.693 0.685
Opportunity to travel abroad for higher studies/work 0.387 0.621
Self-employment is possible 0.380 0.616
Professional calling factor To train and be a ‘doctor’ 0.518 0.717 0.661
Doctors as role models 0.452 0.671
One of the noble professions 0.541 0.648
Opportunity to serve people 0.642 0.619
Opportunity to work in rural/remote locations 0.484 0.521
Personal concerns factor Insufficient time for family 0.787 0.887 0.799
Insufficient time for hobbies 0.772 0.870
Less opportunities in India for higher studies 0.437 0.629
Professional concerns factor Bond after MBBS 0.590 0.758 0.766
Not enough scope for MBBS graduates to practice medicine 0.541 0.733
Long period to settle in life 0.583 0.625
Necessity to do at least a postgraduate degree after MBBS 0.414 0.559
Need to work for long hours with comparatively less salaries 0.453 0.533
Long duration of study period 0.482 0.528
Factors Clusters of study participants (n=95)
p-valuea)
Cluster 1 (n=33) Cluster 2 (n=12) Cluster 3 (n=20) Cluster 4 (n=30)
Personal growth factor 2.8a±0.9 2.5a±0.6 3.7b±0.8 3.1ab±0.8 <0.001
Professional calling factor 4.3a±0.4 3.9ab±0.4 3.8b±0.6 3.1c±0.7 <0.001
Personal concerns factor 2.2a±0.9 3.7b±0.5 1.9a±0.8 3.6b±0.9 <0.001
Professional concerns factor 1.7a±0.6 2.2a±0.5 2.9b±0.6 2.9b±0.7 <0.001
Parameter Sub-groups No. of participants No. of clusters
Chi-square test
1 2 3 4 χ2 Degrees of freedom p-value
Gender Male 39 9 4 13 13 7.69 3 0.05
Female 56 24 8 7 17
Background Rural 8 4 1 3 0 4.50 3 0.21
Urban 85 29 11 16 29
Doctors in family Yes 56 16 9 13 18 3.91 3 0.27
No 37 17 3 6 11
Attempts One 60 15 8 14 23 7.74 3 0.05
>One 30 15 3 6 6
When decided Never 18 1 3 6 8 10.92 6 0.09
Early 42 19 5 8 10
Late 30 10 3 6 11
Career counselling Yes 24 7 1 8 8 3.93 3 0.27
No 66 23 10 12 21
Career choice Only MBBS 48 19 7 10 12 3.71 3 0.29
Others 42 11 4 10 17
Alternate career choice Other than wait 35 8 4 6 17 6.95 3 0.07
Wait next year 55 22 7 14 12
Influenced by Self 32 14 4 4 10 2.79 3 0.42
Non-self 58 16 7 16 19
Self-declared maturity Not mature 28 6 3 9 10 3.61 3 0.31
Mature 62 24 8 11 19
Table 1. Demographic Data of Study Participants
Table 2. Parameters Related to Joining MBBS

MBBS: Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery.

Table 3. Factor Extraction from Items That Influence Students to Join Medicine

Factor extraction was done using principal component analysis to categorize 15 items that might have positively influenced and 10 items that might have negatively affected students in joining medicine into two factors each. A factor loading of more than 0.5 and communalities >0.3 was set as the criteria for factor extraction. Those items (4 in first set that included ‘study a subject that interests me,’ ‘past experience in hospital environment,’ ‘illness in self or family,’ and ‘opportunity to become first doctor in the family/village’ and 1 in the second set that included ‘highly competitive field’) failing to meet these criteria were excluded.

MBBS: Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery.

Table 4. Clusters of Study Participants Based on Factors Influencing Them to Join Medicine

Data are presented as mean±standard deviation. Four clusters of participants were identified. Different letters (a, b, c) in each row indicate that the mean scores are significantly different (p<0.05) from one another by post-hoc tests.

By analysis of variance test.

Table 5. Distribution of Study Participants in Different Clusters by Sub-Groups

The table shows the frequencies of study participants categorized by demographic characteristics and other parameters related to joining medicine in the identified clusters.

MBBS: Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery.