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Profile and rural exposure for nursing and allied health students at two Australian Universities: A retrospective cohort study
Author(s) -
Smith Tony,
Sutton Keith,
Beauchamp Alison,
Depczynski Julie,
Brown Leanne,
Fisher Karin,
Waller Susan,
Wakely Luke,
Maybery Darryl,
Versace Vincent L.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
australian journal of rural health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.48
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1440-1584
pISSN - 1038-5282
DOI - 10.1111/ajr.12689
Subject(s) - medicine , pharmacy , retrospective cohort study , rural area , cohort , workforce , odds , psychological intervention , family medicine , health care , nursing , political science , logistic regression , pathology , law
Objective Linking enrolment and professional placement data for students' from 2 universities, this study compares characteristics across universities and health disciplines. The study explores associations between students' location of origin and frequency, duration and type of placements. Design Retrospective cohort data linkage. Setting Two Australian universities, Monash University and the University of Newcastle. Participants Students who completed medical radiation science, nursing, occupational therapy, pharmacy or physiotherapy at either university between 2 February 2017 and 28 February 2018. Interventions Location of origin, university and discipline of enrolment. Main outcome measure(s) Main measures were whether graduates had multiple rural placements, number of rural placements and cumulative rural placement days. Location of origin, discipline and university of enrolment were the main explanatory variables. Secondary dependent variables were age, sex, socio‐economic indices for location of origin, and available placements. Results A total of 1,315 students were included, of which 22.1% were of rural origin. The odds of rural origin students undertaking a rural placement was more than 4.5 times greater than for urban origin students. A higher proportion of rural origin students had multiple rural placement (56.0% vs 14.9%), with a higher mean number of rural placement days. Public hospitals were the most common placement type, with fewer in primary care, mental health or aged care. Conclusions There is a positive association between rural origin and rural placements in nursing and allied health. To help strengthen recruitment and retention of graduates this association could be further exploited, while being inclusive of non‐rural students