Survey of attitudes and knowledge about science in medical students in southeast Europe

Abstract

For the countries of southeast Europe, joining the European Union would mean a fundamental reassessment of beliefs, attitudes, values, and structures developed during 50 years of communist regimes.1 This would include their healthcare systems and the training of their healthcare professionals. Medical schools in southeast Europe will need to restructure medical curriculums within the unified Europe.2 Medical students will have to learn modern evidence based medicine,3 for which they have not been prepared, mainly because of weak research output of their countries and inadequate education in research methods.4 To assess medical students' knowledge about research methods and communication and their attitudes towards research in medicine we used a specially constructed and validated questionnaire5 in medical schools in five post-communist countries. In total 4307 students (66% response rate) answered a voluntary and anonymous questionnaire. The questionnaire contained a 45 item Likert-type scale developed to measure attitudes towards science, grouped in three subscales, and an eight item knowledge test of principles of scientific research.5 The study was performed simultaneously at all schools, …