Prevalence of Students’ Misconceptions in Cardiovascular Physiology, and the Role of Taking Physiology Courses

Introduction: The cases of misconceptions are intellectual models of phenomena that are different from accepted scientific models of the same phenomena. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of cardiovascular misconceptions among students, and evaluate the role of cardiovascular physiology courses in eliminating them. Methods: This descriptive study was performed on 348 undergraduates in three faculties of medicine, nursing, and biology of Arak University of Medical Sciences and Arak University (year 2009). Students were asked to answer four cardiovascular questions through a questionnaire. The answers of students were analyzed by SPSS software using descriptive statistic and two tailed comparison of proportions to reveal any difference between groups. Results: The prevalence of misconception about comparison of left and right ventricular output ranged from 80 to 98 percents. The misconception was prevalent among 79 to 84 percent of students considering pulse velocity comparison to blood velocity in vessel. Between 95 to 99 percent of them had this problem about the effect of resistance increase on blood flow. Sixty Nine to 73 percent of students had trouble with parallel resistance and effect of removal of one limb on total peripheral resistance. Overall, passing cardiovascular physiology courses was not accompanied with significantly different rate of misconceptions. Conclusion: There is a wide prevalence of misconception about at least 4 cardiovascular concepts among students, and passing the courses of cardiovascular physiology has significant effect in reducing this prevalence.