Causes of academic failure of medical and medical sciences students in Iran: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND Academic failure of medical and medical sciences students is one of the major problems of higher education centers in many countries. This study aims to collect and compare relevant researches in this field in Iran. METHODS The appropriate keywords were searched in the national and international databases, and the findings were categorized into related and non-related articles accordingly. RESULTS Only 22 articles were included in this systematic review. In terms of content analysis, gender, living in a dorm, employment, marital status, age, special rights in the entrance exams, the time lag between diploma and university, diploma average, learning style, being nonnative students, being a transferred student, psychological problems, occupation of the mother, salary level, diploma type, field of study, self-esteem, exam anxiety and interest on the field of study were considered as the influential factors for academic failure of the students. CONCLUSION This systematic review shows that there is no definite academic failure criterion. It is also suggested Iranian researchers should pay more attention on the documentation of the higher educational strategies that have been implemented to prevent avoidable academic failure and contain physiological academic failure.