Copyright
©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Chinese medical students’ interest in COVID-19 pandemic
Nan-Ze Yu, Zhi-Jin Li, Yu-Ming Chong, Yuan Xu, Jun-Ping Fan, Yang Yang, Yue Teng, Yu-Wei Zhang, Wen-Chao Zhang, Ming-Zi Zhang, Jiu-Zuo Huang, Xiao-Jun Wang, Shu-Yang Zhang, Xiao Long
Nan-Ze Yu, Zhi-Jin Li, Yu-Ming Chong, Yue Teng, Yu-Wei Zhang, Wen-Chao Zhang, Ming-Zi Zhang, Jiu-Zuo Huang, Xiao-Jun Wang, Xiao Long, Department of Plastic Surgery, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China
Yuan Xu, Department of Thoracic Surgery, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China
Jun-Ping Fan, Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China
Yang Yang, Department of Orthopaedics, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China
Shu-Yang Zhang, Department of Cardiology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China
Author contributions: Yu NZ was the principal investigator; Yu NZ, Li ZJ, and Chong YM designed the study; Xuan Y, Fan JP, and Zhang MZ established the protocol used; Yang Y, Teng Y, and Zhang WC distributed the questionnaire and collected the data; Li ZJ, Chong YM, Zhang YW, and Hang JZ drafted the manuscript; Long X, Wang XJ, and Zhang SY performed critical revisions of the manuscript; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the Education Reforming Program, Peking Union Medical College, No. 2015zlgc0111.
Institutional review board statement: The Institutional Review Board of Peking Union Medical College Hospital provided approval for this study (IRB No. S-K1173).
Informed consent statement: Our study has not involved the patients’ consent because it is not a clinical study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement – checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement – checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Xiao Long, MD, Surgeon, Professor of Medicine, Department of Plastic Surgery, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, No. 1 Shuaifuyuan, Dongcheng District, Beijing 100730, China. pumclongxiao@126.com
Received: June 30, 2020
Peer-review started: June 30, 2020
First decision: July 24, 2020
Revised: August 2, 2020
Accepted: August 31, 2020
Article in press: August 31, 2020
Published online: September 25, 2020
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has raged across the world. The dramatically increasing numbers of infected cases consequently caused a heavy burden on medical staff worldwide. With the intent of helping ease the burden of medical systems, some medical students have been willing to volunteer in the pandemic but there is little systematic evidence to show that among Chinese medical students.
Research motivation
As medical students will emerge as the practitioners during future outbreaks and pandemics, it is essential to determine the profile of incentivizing factors for such volunteer work today. This knowledge will also help to construct strategies that will improve their enthusiasm for volunteerism.
Research objectives
A total of 552 medical students at Peking Union Medical College responded to the study questionnaire.
Research methods
This study was online-based and conducted through a questionnaire that explored students’ interest in the relevant knowledge on COVID-19, attitude towards volunteerism in the pandemic, and career preference. Logistic regression modeling was used to investigate possible factors that could encourage medical students to volunteer in a pandemic.
Research results
Chinese medical students expressed a strong initiative to aid in COVID-19 by means of taking on direct, indirect, or administrative responsibilities. There were two negative influencing factors, namely, student-class and hazards associated with the voluntary job, which suggested that reducing students’ fear of being infected and offering sufficient personal protection could help improve volunteerism in a pandemic. In terms of future career preference, nearly half of the students expressed reluctance to engage in pandemic-related specialties, which could imply more measures to attract potential practitioners in the future.
Research conclusions
Most Chinese medical students take initiatives to learn about COVID-19 and are glad to volunteer in a pandemic. However, hazards associated with the voluntary job can likely damp down students’ enthusiasm for volunteerism, which means more innovative methods, such as Internet platforms, sufficient personal protection, specialized knowledge, and full training in advance, can be explored.
Research perspectives
Multi-center studies are needed, taking racial, geographic distribution, educational background, parental background, income and academic performance, etc. into consideration. In addition, more standard assessment questionnaires should be made and enacted to evaluate students’ comprehensive understanding of COVID-19, in order to reduce the bias of different surveys conducted in different regions.
