Patients’ preference to bedside teaching encounters in four major wards in a tertiary care centre

Abstract

Introduction: Patient interaction is a vital aspect of medical education. Bedside teaching encounters involve clinicians, medical students, and patients, and comprise a formative and focused activity. Patients' willingness to cooperate and contribute to the education and training of medical students provide better teaching opportunities. The study aims to find the patients’ preference to bedside teaching encounters in four major wards in a tertiary care center in Nepal. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed in four major wards in a tertary care centre from June 3, 2015 to July 3, 2015 after receiving ethical approval. Convenient sampling was done. Data was collected in Microsoft Excel and analyzed in Statistical Package for Social Sciences 13.0. Point estimate at 95% Confidence Interval was calculated along with frequency and proportion for binary data. Subgroup analysis was done on the basis of demographic variables. Results: Seventy-eight (77.2%) patients preferred bedside teaching encounters among 101 participants at 95% Confidence Interval (77.12-77.28%). Among which, females, age ranging from 16 to 32 years, education below secondary school and with hospital stay<4 days were most common. Conclusions: The results showed that most of the patients preferred bedside teaching encounters which was congruent with the other national and international studies.