Attitudes of Medical Students in Thailand toward Patient-Centered Care: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Objective: To assess the attitudes of medical students toward patient-centered care and explore what the factors that influence these attitudes. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in January 2015. A study population of 619 medical students in their second to sixth academic year in Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University were invited to answer the Patient-Practitioner Orientation Scale (PPOS) which was translated into Thai by back-translation with bilingual test and was used to assess the attitudes toward the doctor-patient relationship. The associations between the PPOS score and the individual characteristics that included gender, academic year, grade point average (GPA), hometown, mean expenditure per month and residence during the study period were examined by using the independent t-test, one-way ANOVA and multiple linear regression. Results: The total number of respondents was 520 (84.0%). The mean (S.D.) overall PPOS score was 3.8 (0.4). From multiple linear regression analysis, there were three factors that were significantly associated with the PPOS score: gender, academic year and GPA (p-value<0.050). Hometown, mean expenditure per month and residence during the study period were not significantly different. Conclusions: Female medical students, higher academic year and a higher GPA had greater positive attitudes toward patient-centered care.

Keywords

• attitudes
• doctor-patient relationship
• medical student
• patient-centered care