A Cross-sectional Descriptive Study to Assess the Knowledge, Attitude and Practices towards Voluntary Participation in Health Research among the Medical Undergraduate Students

Background and Aim: Research training at the level of undergraduate is found to be a critical component of medical school curriculum. Undergraduate medical students routinely participate as volunteers in both observational as well as survey studies conducted at medical institutions. Their knowledge, attitude and the practices they follow in voluntary participation in a research project as a subject is unknown. Here in this study we tried, 1. To assess the level of knowledge, attitude and practices towards voluntary participation in medical research among the undergraduate medical students. 2. To analyse the gender differences existing in the opinions given by the above respondents. Methods: A cross sectional descriptive survey using a pretested questionnaire was done among the students with stratified random sampling and the students were selected from the different batches .The study was carried out in the campus for a period of 45 days among 200 students of both gender. Statistical significance was calculated using Graph pad prism v5.0. Results: Ninety percentage of the students agreed for the need for voluntary participation in medical research.55% of them volunteered as subjects due to their peer pressure only.78% never ever participated in any research.95% of the female participants expressed the importance of voluntary participation in research (p<0.05). Conclusion: There is an expectation among the students to participate and acquire knowledge and skill through research activities. Majority of them expect a research integrated curriculum that could cater their enrollment and participation in research activities. Differences in opinions among the gender was not seen.