Intended Career Choice in Family Medicine in Slovenia: An Issue of Gender, Family Background or Empathic Attitudes in Final Year Medical Students?

Materia Socio Medica

article

Marija Petek Ster¹  Polona Selic¹ 

[1] Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana

关键词: medical students;    empathic attitudes;    father’s educational status;    career choice;    familymedicine;   

DOI  :  10.5455/msm.2017.29.143-148

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Avicena d.o.o

【 摘 要 】

Background: Among a variety of complex factorsaffecting a decision to take family medicine as afuture specialisation, this study focused on demographic characteristics and assessed empathicattitudes in final year medical students. Methods:A convenience sampling method was employed intwo consecutive academic years of final year medical students at the Faculty of Medicine in Ljubljana,Slovenia, in May 2014 and May 2015. A modifiedversion of the 16-item Jefferson Scale of Empathy –Student Version (JSE-S) was administered to examine self-reported empathic attitudes. An intendedcareer in family medicine was reported using afive-point Likert scale. Results: Of the 175 medicalschool seniors in study year 2013/14, there were64 (36.6%) men and 111 (63.4%) women, whilein the second group (study year 2014/5), therewere 68 (40.5%) men and 100 (59.5%) women;168 students in total. They were 24.9±1.6 (generation 2013/4) and 24.9±1.7 (generation 2014/15)years old. Thirty-six percent of the students inthe academic year 2013/14 intended to choosefamily medicine as a future career, and a similarproportion in academic year 2014/15 (31.7%). Gender (χ2=6.763, p=0.034) and empathic attitudes(c2=14.914; p=0.001) had a bivariate associationwith an intended career choice of family medicinein the 2014/15 generation. When logistic regression was applied to this group of students, anintended career choice in family medicine wasassociated with empathic attitudes (OR 1.102, 95%CI 1.040-1.167, p=0.001), being single (OR 3.659,95% CI 1.150-11.628, p=0.028) and the fatherhaving only primary school education (OR 142.85795% CI 1.868, p=0.025), but not with gender (OR1.117, 95% CI 0.854-1.621, p=0.320). Conclusion:The level of students` father’s education, and notliving in an intimate partnership, increased theodds on senior medical students to choose familymedicine, yet we expected higher JSE-S scores tobe associated with interest in this speciality. Todeepen our understanding, this study should berepeated to give us solid grounded insight into thedeterminants of career choice; associations withgender in particular need to be re-tested.

【 授权许可】

CC BY