Undergraduate medical students’ attitudes towards patient-centredness: a longitudinal study

Abstract

This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. ObjectiveDue to various reasons patient-centredness has become an attribute most medical institutions aim to develop in their graduates. Research however indicates that there is a decline in undergraduate medical students' attitudes towards patient-centredness as they progress through their training. Most of the studies available are cross sectional studies, therefore a longitudinal study to look at how the attitudes of a specific group of undergraduate medical students change over time can be very useful.Methods A longitudinal study involving undergraduate medical students was employed. These students completed the Patient Practitioner Orientation Scale (PPOS) over the last four years of their training and the mean scores of the PPOS was compared. The PPOS measures two constructs related to patient-centrendness namely "caring" and "sharing".Results and discussionPPOS results indicated that students already exhibited fairly low attitudes towards patient-centredness at the beginning of their clinical rotations in their third year, with no significant decline over the next three years. Reasons why the PPOS scores in this study are generally lower than in other similar populations is not clear, but possibilities that are mentioned are that it might be low from the first year already as well as the lack of a comprehensive communication skills training curriculum.ConclusionOur study showed that students' relatively low attitudes towards patient-centredness did not change significantly during their last four years of training. Implications for this finding is that selection criteria of students could perhaps be reconsidered and deliberate teaching and learning interventions to promote positive attitudes towards patient-centredness should be included as part of a comprehensive communication skills curriculum until students graduate.