Undergraduate medical students’ self-perceived knowledge and attitude toward health disparities

Abstract

Context: Good health and well-being for all constitute the third sustainable development goal established by the United Nations which aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for everyone at all ages. However, health disparities are a rampant yet often neglected issue in many nations across the world. Aims: We aimed to determine medical students’ self-perceived knowledge and attitude toward health disparities as well as the association among gender, ethnicity, family income, and self-perceived health disparities. Settings and Design: A cross-sectional study was conducted among medical students of private medical university in Malaysia. Materials and Methods: Online questionnaire was distributed. A total of 123 students participated. Statistical analysis used: Chi-Squared test and Fisher exact test were calculated. Results: 60.97% of the medical students agreed that they would be able to demonstrate empathy toward multiple difficulties faced by patients from underserved populations. There were significant associations between students’ family income and medical students’ comfort of addressing health issues in six underserved populations such as immigrants and refugees (P = 0.005), lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community (P = 0.001), homeless (P = 0.018), incarcerated individuals (P = 0.003), those who are mentally ill or those with substance abuse (P < 0.001), and veterans (P = 0.029). Conclusions: Most of the students had adequate knowledge, positive attitudes, and a good holistic self-perception toward health disparities. We recommended medical institutes to provide learning environments for student to be exposed to underserved populations which will help to strengthen students’ attitudes and commitment to underserved communities.

Keywords

• attitude; health disparities; knowledge; malaysia; medical student