Evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of community-based education from the viewpoint of students

Introduction: Responsive medicine is an appropriate trainingmethod which trains the graduates who can act effectively ininitial and secondary aspects of health issues in the society.Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive-analytic studywhich was done using quantitative method. The target populationof this study was all the students of the Nutrition and HealthSchool of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. The sample wasrandomly selected in this study and 75 students were selected basedon the methodologist’s comments and similar studies and randomnumbertable from a list obtained from the school’s departmentof education. This questionnaire was a researcher-made onewhich consisted of 23 questions in 2 sections with 21 closedendedquestions and 2 open-ended questions; 70 questionnaireswere completed correctly. The closed-ended questions had 4aspects (completely agree to completely disagree) answered in5-point Likert scale type. Its face validity was confirmed by 4faculty members. The construct validity of the questionnaire wasanalyzed by factor analysis test and its reliability was assessed bya pilot on 20 students with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.85. The datawere analyzed using descriptive statistical tests (mean, standarddeviation, …) and the Pearson coefficient (p<0.001).Results: The results of this study showed that the maximum meanscore was 3.58±0.65 which was related to the context of thesecourses and the minimum mean was 2.66±1.14 which was relatedto the logbook implementation. The 2 open-ended questionsindicated that the most important strengths were the use oflogbooks as a guide and determining the minimum training; of theweaknesses was the mismatch between the theoretical educationand the practical activities. Also, developing the minimumtraining that an expert should know and using the common topicsrelated to theoretical education were the most important pointsmentioned by the respondents.Conclusion: The educational planning of the authorities for keepingthe balance of the theoretical training with the practical activitiesand giving opportunities to the trainee or intern to face diseasesand the common problems of the community seems to be necessary.Keywords: Clinical; Education; Nutrition; Health