Tran Kelvin, Kovalskiy Aleksandr, Desai Anand, Imran Amna, Ismail Rahim, Hernandez Caridad
College of Medicine, University of Central Florida.
Cureus. 2017 Feb 23;9(2):e1051. doi: 10.7759/cureus.1051.
The number of primary care physicians in the United States continues to lag behind the number of uninsured people. There has been a growing demand for medical students to improve their self-efficacy, comfortableness, attitude, and interest in working with the underserved and in primary care. This study aims to discern whether volunteering at a student-run, free healthcare clinic has a positive impact on these five variables of interest or not.
A 95-item survey was distributed through Qualtrics Survey Software (Qualtrics, Provo, UT, USA) to medical students from the Class of 2018 and Class of 2019 at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine. They were recruited via emails, Facebook, and in-classroom announcements. Mean responses on a Likert-like scale to different survey items were collected and compared between two study cohorts: Keeping Neighbors In Good Health Through Service (KNIGHTS) Clinic volunteers and non-volunteers.
Results from 128 students showed no significant differences in the means between the two cohorts (p-values were not significant). When volunteers were asked the survey item, "KNIGHTS Clinic positively influenced my attitude towards working with underserved patients," 62% strongly agreed, 26% agreed, 10% were neutral, and 2% disagreed.
Based on the results, volunteering at KNIGHTS Clinic may not have a positive impact on the five variables of interest. However, the lack of significance may also be due to certain limitations of this study addressed elsewhere in this paper. With the majority of KNIGHTS Clinic volunteers agreeing that "KNIGHTS Clinic positively influenced […their] attitude towards working with underserved patients," there may be a positive impact of volunteering on volunteers' attitude towards working with the underserved.
美国初级保健医生的数量持续落后于未参保人群的数量。医学院学生提高自身自我效能感、舒适度、态度以及从事基层医疗和为弱势群体服务的兴趣的需求日益增长。本研究旨在探究在学生运营的免费医疗诊所做志愿者是否会对这五个感兴趣的变量产生积极影响。
通过Qualtrics调查软件（美国犹他州普罗沃市的Qualtrics公司）向中佛罗里达大学医学院2018级和2019级的医学生发放了一份包含95个条目的调查问卷。通过电子邮件、脸书和课堂通知招募他们。收集了两个研究队列（通过服务让邻居保持健康（KNIGHTS）诊所的志愿者和非志愿者）对不同调查项目类似李克特量表的平均回答，并进行比较。
128名学生的结果显示两个队列的均值没有显著差异（p值不显著）。当志愿者被问及调查项目“KNIGHTS诊所对我为弱势群体患者服务的态度产生了积极影响”时，62%的人强烈同意，26%的人同意，10%的人持中立态度，2%的人不同意。
基于这些结果，在KNIGHTS诊所做志愿者可能不会对这五个感兴趣的变量产生积极影响。然而，缺乏显著性也可能是由于本文其他地方提到的本研究的某些局限性。由于大多数KNIGHTS诊所的志愿者都同意“KNIGHTS诊所对[他们]为弱势群体患者服务的态度产生了积极影响”，做志愿者可能会对志愿者为弱势群体服务的态度产生积极影响。
