Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Kampala, Uganda.
Department of Anatomy, Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Kampala, Uganda.
BMC Med Educ. 2024 Apr 12;24(1):409. doi: 10.1186/s12909-024-05412-3.
Medical schools are called to be socially accountable by medical education and healthcare system stakeholders. Social accountability is a feature of excellent medical education. Medical students are essential to the development of socially accountable medical schools. Therefore, understanding the perceptions and experiences of medical students regarding social accountability is critical for efforts to improve social accountability practices and outcomes.
This cross-sectional online questionnaire-based survey used Google Forms and involved medical students in their fourth and fifth years of study at the Makerere University School of Medicine. The survey was conducted between September 2022 and October 2023. We used a study questionnaire and a validated toolkit designed by students as part of The Training for Health Equity Collaborative to gauge a school's progress towards social accountability in medical schools to collect data on demographics, perceptions and experiences and evaluate social accountability.
Out of 555 eligible medical students, 426 responded to the online questionnaire. The response rate was 77%. The mean age of the students was 25.24 ± 4.4 years. Almost three fourths of the students were male (71.3%), and slightly less than two thirds were in their fourth year of study (65%). Almost half of the students (48.1%%) evaluated the school as doing well with regard to social accountability. The evaluation items referring to community-based research and positive impact on the community had the highest mean scores. Only 6 (3.6%) students who reported hearing of social accountability had a clear understanding of social accountability. Students receiving career guidance in secondary school was associated with evaluating social accountability in the medical school as strong (p-0.003).
Medical students evaluated the medical school favorably forsocial accountability despite lacking a clear understanding of social accountability. Receiving career guidance in secondary school was significantly associated with a positive evaluation of social accountability.
医学院校被医学教育和医疗保健系统利益相关者要求承担社会责任。社会责任感是卓越医学教育的一个特征。医学生是发展有社会责任感的医学院校的关键。因此，了解医学生对社会责任的看法和经验对于努力改善社会责任实践和结果至关重要。
本横断面在线问卷调查使用 Google 表单，涉及马凯雷雷大学医学院四年级和五年级的医学生。调查于 2022 年 9 月至 2023 年 10 月进行。我们使用了学生作为健康公平合作培训一部分设计的研究问卷和验证工具包来衡量学校在医学教育中实现社会责任的进展，以收集人口统计学、看法和经验数据，并评估社会责任。
在 555 名符合条件的医学生中，有 426 名学生对在线问卷做出了回应。回应率为 77%。学生的平均年龄为 25.24±4.4 岁。近四分之三的学生是男性（71.3%），略低于三分之二的学生处于四年级（65%）。近一半的学生（48.1%）评估学校在社会责任方面表现良好。与社区为基础的研究和对社区的积极影响有关的评估项目得分最高。只有 6 名（3.6%）报告听说过社会责任的学生对社会责任有明确的理解。在中学接受职业指导与评估医学院的社会责任强呈正相关（p-0.003）。
尽管医学生对社会责任缺乏明确的理解，但他们对医学院的社会责任评价良好。在中学接受职业指导与对社会责任的积极评价呈显著正相关。
