Evaluation of medical interns' attitudes towards relevant aspects of medical practice

Abstract

Summary Introduction: In traditional medical school curriculum, sixth-year is the moment in which students experience medical practice more intensively. Attitudes can be considered predictors of behaviors and actions. Evaluating them contributes to improve medical training. Objective: To evaluate attitudes during medical internship considering medical practice and associated factors in a Brazilian public university. Method: Cross-sectional study that included 69 students, based on a structured questionnaire and an attitude scale (Colares, 2002). We used descriptive statistics, with classification of the attitude tendency, clusters analysis and F-statistics. Results: The average age of the participants was 25.1±1.9, and 56.5% of them were male. Students presented positive attitudes to emotional aspects in organic diseases, primary health care, the medical contribution to the scientific advancement of medicine, and other aspects of medical activity and health politics; there were conflicting attitudes concerning mental illness and negative attitudes concerning death. Conclusion: Results show the need for interventions in order to reduce the identified conflicting and negative attitudes.