Global Rate of Willingness to Volunteer Among Medical and Health Students During Pandemic: Systemic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Background: During health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, shortages of health care workers often occur. Recruiting students as volunteers could be an option, but it is uncertain whether the idea is well-accepted. Objective: This study aims to estimate the global rate of willingness to volunteer among medical and health students in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A systematic search was conducted on PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and Google Scholar for studies reporting the number of health students willing to volunteer during COVID-19 from 2019 to November 17, 2023. The meta-analysis was performed using a restricted maximum-likelihood model with logit transformation. Results: A total of 21 studies involving 26,056 health students were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled estimate of the willingness-to-volunteer rate among health students across multiple countries was 66.13%, with an I2 of 98.99% and P value of heterogeneity (P-Het)