An analysis of the current situation and influencing factors of medical students' social practice

Objective To investigate the present situation of social practice of medical students and to analyze its influencing factors, to provide scientific basis for improving students' participation and quality of participation. Methods The survey of 374 medical students of Peking University was conducted in July 2015, using a self-made questionnaire including the cognition of social practice, social practice experience, etc. The sample of students was selected by cluster sampling from 2007 to 2014 grades. There were 370 valid questionnaires; the effective response rate was 98.8%. IBM SPSS statistics 20.0 was used to make statistical analysis and data were processed by description analysis and ordinal regression analysis. Results 328 persons (88.6%) affirmed the importance of social practice. However, 120 students (32.4%) did not take part in social practice in last school year. There were 357 students participating in social practice during the university. 341 students (95.5%) achieved and even exceeded the practice expectations. Secondly, it depicted the influence factors of students' participation in social practice, including family economic factor, former social practice experience before entering university, and the personal factors which included grade, overall rating scores points, and position. Moreover, factors influencing the quality of their participation included the preparation time of social practice, the output, the awards and the guide teacher. Conclusions It showed that the situation of medical students' participation in social practice was not satisfactory. It suggested schools set social practice credit requirements, and strengthen the freshmen education, to establish students' inertia effect of social practice. Key words: Medical students; Social practice; Questionnaire survey; Influential factors