Professionalism Among Family Medicine Residents in Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Professionalism, one of CanMEDS competencies is related to the commitment to carry out professional responsibilities. Researchers have suggested different domains. Most important among them is teamwork, respect, sense of responsibility, ethical practice reflection and self-awareness. The most commonly used instruments are peer assessments, standardized checklist, OSCE, portfolio and incident reports. Our study was to assess professionalism among family medicine residents in Jeddah. Aim: Professionalism among Saudi Meds FM was updated in Saudi Arabia in accordance with the release of the Ethics and Professionalism Handbook by SCHS; so, the current study was aimed to assess these changes among family medicine residents in Jeddah. Methodology: It is a descriptive observational study conducted in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A self-administered validated questionnaire involving two residency training programs for family medicine residents from R1 to R4 was used for collection of data using consecutive sampling technique. Chi-squared test was used for statistical analysis using IBM SPSS, significant if p-value is below 0.05. Result: A total of 120 participants replied with a response rate of 73%. The majority of them are female 84(70%), mean age is 27.3±2.7 and mostly are married 64(54%). Majority of them are junior residents (64%) and mostly affiliated in a joint residency training program (62%) which is being instituted by the Ministry of Health (MOH) (44%). Independent learning (89%) is the most common teaching method in family medicine residency program followed by interactive learning in the form of seminar or small group discussion (80%) and traditional lecture (78%). The residents are being assessed typically through the completion of their portfolio (84%) and OSCE (81%). Clinical teachers obtained an attitude score of 63.4± 15.3, their professionalism score in general is 68.1±18. Conclusions: Family medicine institutions already have professionalism education program, but modification and enhancement of existing teaching tools is essential. Existing teaching and assessment methods have no significant effect on resident’s attitude. Role modeling, although a powerful method is no longer adequate to ensure the enucleation of professional values in residents Keywords: Family medical residents, Professionalism, Saudi Arabia,