Tendencies towards emigration and their association with introversion and ethnocentrism among final-year medical students from Osijek, Croatia: a cross-sectional study

BMC Medical Education

Research

Livia Puljak¹  Jakov Milić²  Iva Milić Vranješ³  Maja Miškulin³  Jelena Jakab⁴  Zrinka Vuksan-Ćusa⁵  Maja Ćurčić⁶ 

[1] Center for Evidence-Based Medicine and Health Care, Catholic University of Croatia, Ilica 242, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia;Croatian Carmelite Province of St. Joseph, Zagreb, Croatia;Faculty of Medicine Osijek, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Osijek, Croatia;Faculty of Medicine Osijek, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Osijek, Croatia;Faculty of Dental Medicine and Health Osijek, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Osijek, Croatia;School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia;University Hospital Dubrava, Zagreb, Croatia;

关键词: Emigration;    Medical students;    Ethnocentrism;    Introversion;    Medical specialty;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12909-023-04611-8

 received in 2023-02-05, accepted in 2023-08-24,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe migration of healthcare workers is attracting growing attention worldwide. Attitudes towards emigration develop over the years, and it is possible that, in addition to social factors, they are influenced by the characteristics of a person’s personality and the sense of belonging to the social environment. This study aimed to determine the tendencies of final-year medical students’ from Osijek, Croatia, towards emigration after graduation and after specialization, as well as their specialty preferences and to investigate whether introversion and ethnocentrism have an impact on attitudes toward leaving the country in search of employment elsewhere.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among final-year (6th year) medical students from Osijek, Croatia, in two consecutive academic years – 2014/2015 and 2015/2016. Students completed a questionnaire about sociodemographic characteristics, academic and scientific performance, preferences about their future medical career, the medical specialty of choice, emigration tendencies after graduation and specialization, ethnocentrism and introversion.ResultsThere were 124 students who participated in the study (response rate: 96%). A quarter of participants agreed that they are likely or very likely to emigrate after graduation (25.0%) or after specialization (23.39%). Variables associated with the intention to emigrate were specialty preferences (students that prefer endocrinology and psychiatry had the highest emigration tendencies), academic year in which the participants were included (students included in 2014/2015 were more prone to emigrate after specialization, p = 0.060), prior involvement in scientific projects (students with experience in scientific projects expressed higher tendencies to emigrate after graduation, p = 0.023), and ethnocentrism (higher ethnocentrism was associated with a lower tendency towards emigration after specialization, Spearman’s rho = -0.191).ConclusionOur finding that a quarter of final-year medical students from the Faculty of Medicine Osijek were considering emigrating from Croatia in search of employment elsewhere after graduation or specialization is not as high as in previous Croatian studies or studies conducted in other European countries. Even though these data may be encouraging, considering the lack of physicians in Croatia, interventions are needed to prevent permanent emigration to protect the future functioning of the Croatian health system. Furthermore, our study did not find significant associations between levels of introversion and ethnocentrism and tendency to emigrate from Croatia. It seems that the phenomenon covering the emigration of students is more complex and influenced by many other factors which were not included in our study.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2023

【 图 表 】

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Fig. 5