Learning Analytical Epidemiology Concepts Through Research Projects During Community Medicine Clinical Postings
Keywords:
Epidemiology, research, community medicine, learningAbstract
Background: Innovative methods are required to teach epidemiology to medical undergraduate students.
Aim: To assess the effect of research projects, as a part of community medicine clinical postings, in knowledge and skill attainment pertaining to analytical epidemiology.
Methods: Forty MBBS students were involved in conducting a hospital-based matched case-control study to determine the risk factors for hypertension. Faculty of Community Medicine facilitated the process. Students critically analyzed the study by comparing the concepts (taught in briefing and from the study material) with the actual study conducted by them. Pre-test questions were repeated as post-test; in addition, open ended questions were given in the form of a written test.
Results: We found that average post test score was 13.8 (max 20); an increase by 10.6 (0.95 CI: 9.3, 11.9). Of the 36 take home points (concepts), it was found that 13 of them were understood by ≥75% students, 13 by <75% (but ≥50%), and 10 by <50% students.
Conclusion: Our methodology of simultaneously conducting briefing sessions and data collection, with the aim of empowering MBBS students to critically analyze the research project, has enabled them to grasp various concepts of analytical epidemiology which, usually, are not taught to them.
References
Astin J, Tand J, Moore L. Medical students' perspec-tive on the teaching of medical statistics in the under-graduate medical curriculum. Stat Med 2002;1:1003-06.
Ahmad F, Zehra N, Omair A, Anjum Q. Students’ opinion regarding application of epidemiology, bio-statistics and survey methodology courses in medical research. J Pak Med Assoc 2009;59:307-10.
Dongre AR, Deshmukh PR, Garg BS. Formative exploration of students’ perception about Communi-ty Medicine teaching at Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, ewagram, India. Online J Health Al-lied Scs 2008;7:2.
Premrajan KC, Nagesh S, Jha N, Kumar S, Yadav BK. Teaching Epidemiology in Community Setting for Medical Under Graduates-our Experience from East-ern Nepal. Ind J Com Med 2006;31:289-90.
Dongre AR, Kalaiselvan G, Mahalakshmy T. The benefits to medical undergraduates of exposure to community-based survey research. Educ Health (Ab-ingdon) 2011;24:591.
Soudarssanane MB, Rotti SB, Roy G, Srinivasa DK. Research as a tool for the teaching of epidemiology. World Health Forum 1994;15:48-50.
Kumar D, Angurana R. Impact of epidemiological and statistical skills training in undergraduates. Med Educ 2011;45:1131–62.
Bouhaimed M, Thalib L, Suhail AR. Outcomes associated with community-based research projects in teaching undergraduate public health. Med Teach 2008;30:384–388.
Shankar PR, Chandrasekhar TS, Mishra P, Subish P. Initiating and strengthening medical student research: Time to take up the gauntlet. Kathmandu Univ Med J 2006;4:135-38.
Grimes DA, Schulz KF. An overview of clinical research: the lay of the land. The Lancet 2002;359:57-61.
Grimes DA, Schulz KF. Descriptive studies: what they can and cannot do. The Lancet 2002;359:145-49.
Schulz KF, Grimes DA. Case-control studies: research in reverse. The Lancet 2002;359:431-34.
Grimes DA, Schulz KF. Cohort studies: marching towards outcomes. The Lancet 2002;359:341–45.
Grimes DA, Schulz KF. Bias and causal associations in observational research. The Lancet 2002;359:248–52.
Grimes DA, Schulz KF. Compared to what? Finding controls for case-control studies. The Lancet 2005;65:1429–33
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The authors retain the copyright of their article, with first publication rights granted to Medsci Publications.
