Do Taught Courses on Community Medicine Change Knowledge Status Regarding Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics in Medical Students?

This study aimed to explore the changes in medical student's knowledge and attitudes regarding clinical epidemiology and biostatistics (CEB) after community medicine (CM) taught courses. All the 3rd (before CM-taught courses) and 4th year (after CM-taught courses) undergraduate students of Dhaka Medical College, Bangladesh, were given a questionnaire concerning some introductory level problems on CEB and attitudes towards them. Mean knowledge scores were not statistically different between these two groups: 3.70 and 3.85 (out of 9) on clinical epidemiology; 0.20 and 0.18 (out of 4) on biostatistics; and 3.91 and 4.04 as a total (out of 13) among them, respectively. Most of the 3rd and 4th year students agreed that CEB is essential for smooth understanding of clinical medicine and journals, and asserted to include it in CM-taught courses. Since the current CM-curriculum does not offer any improvement of knowledge among them, well-planned taught courses on it should be included as a component of CM.