The purpose of this study was to compare students' awareness of and satisfaction with clerkships in family medicine between a university hospital and a community hospital or clinic.
Thirty-eight 4th year medical students who were undergoing a clerkship in family medicine in the 1st semester of 2012 were surveyed via questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered both before and after the clerkship.
External clerkships were completed in eight family medicine clinics and two regional hospitals. At preclerkship, participants showed strong expectation for understanding primary care and recognition of the need for community clerkship, mean scores of 4.3±0.5 and 4.1±0.7, respectively. At post-clerkship, participants showed a significant increase in recognition of the need for community clerkship (4.7±0.5, P<0.001). The pre-clerkship recognition of differences in patient characteristics between university hospitals and community hospitals or clinics was 4.1±0.7; at post-clerkship, it was 3.9±0.7. Students' confidence in their ability to see a first-visit patient and their expectation of improved interviewing skills both significantly increased at post-clerkship (P<0.01). Satisfaction with feedback from preceptors and overall satisfaction with the clerkship also significantly increased, but only for the university hospital clerkship (P<0.01).
Students' post-clerkship satisfaction was uniformly high for both clerkships. At pre-clerkship, students were aware of the differences in patient characteristics between university hospitals and community hospitals or clinics, and this awareness did not change by the end of the clerkship.
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Medical students are usually under more stress than that experienced by non-medical students. Stress testing tools for Korean medical students have not been sufficiently studied. Thus, we adapted and modified the East Asian Student Stress Inventory (EASSI), a stress testing tool for Korean students studying abroad, and verified its usefulness as a stress test in Korean university students. We also compared and analyzed stress levels between medical and non-medical students.
A questionnaire survey was conducted on medical and non-medical students of a national university, and the responses of 224 students were analyzed for this study. Factor analysis and reliability testing were performed based on data collected for 25 adapted EASSI questions and those on the Korean version of the Global Assessment of Recent Stress Scale (GARSS). A correlation analysis was performed between the 13 modified EASSI questions and the GARSS, and validity of the modified EASSI was verified by directly comparing stress levels between the two student groups.
The 13 questions adapted for the EASSI were called the modified EASSI and classified into four factors through a factor analysis and reliability testing. The Pearson's correlation analysis revealed a significant correlation between the modified EASSI and the Korean version of the GARSS, suggesting a complementary strategy of using both tests.
The validity and reliability of the EASSI were verified. The modified Korean EASSI could be a useful stress test for Korean medical students. Our results show that medical students were under more stress than that of non-medical students. Thus, these results could be helpful for managing stress in medical students.
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