Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on career intention amongst undergraduate medical students: a single-centre cross-sectional study conducted in Hubei Province

Potential Impact of COVID-19 on Medical Career Aspirations of Prospective Students

This article describes the evolving landscape of medical education in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing the renewed importance of public health, mental well-being, and career choices among medical students. The pandemic has prompted a significant shift in medical student's career aspirations, highlighting the need for mental health support mechanisms within the medical education framework. Medical students' career choices are influenced directly and indirectly by the challenges and experiences of the pandemic era, which are discussed in this article under four key themes: traditional values, global health interests and disparities, developing trends, and digital healthcare. There is an urgent need to adjust medical training to the new reality and share the future directions of the medical education landscape by embracing diverse career paths in medicine, integrating technology into medical training, adapting to the changing context of medicine, and strengthening collaboration and communication. The pandemic underscores the importance of evidence-based patient care, necessitating the preparation of tomorrow's doctors to address the emerging healthcare challenges with resilience, adaptability, and a comprehensive understanding of both local and global health challenges.

The impact of COVID-19 on medical students

Objective

The outbreak of COVID-19 has disrupted social order and placed a heavy burden on the healthcare system. The pandemic also has an unprecedented impact on medical students.

Methods

We searched PubMed for articles related to COVID-19 and medical students from January 2020 to December 2022. A total of 5358 studies were retrieved and after screening, 176 studies were finally included in this review.

Results

The impact of COVID-19 on medical students is widespread and profound. First reflected in the transformation of educational models. In the early days, education model quickly shifted from offline to online. In terms of clinical exposure, most students have been suspended from internships, while in some areas with staff shortages they have the opportunity to continue clinical work. Scientific research of medical students is also difficult to carry out due to COVID-19. The epidemic has also seriously damaged students' mental health, and this impact won't simply disappear with the improvement of the epidemic situation. The career intentions of medical students may also become firmer or change due to COVID-19. International medical electives have also been negatively affected by COVID-19 due to travel restriction. Even in the postpandemic era, with the gradual resumption of work, production and school, medical students are still affected in some ways by COVID-19.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on both the education of medical students and their personal development. Through COVID-19, we should reflect on what models of medical education should be developed in the future. Based on the experiences learned from COVID-19, we believe that a more flexible blended education model may be the most promising.

Change in demand for health-related undergraduate studies in Spain during 2015-2021: a temporal series study

Introduction

The expansion of higher education is a worldwide phenomenon. To our knowledge, there are no studies analyzing the trends in demands of enrollment in health-related studies in Spain. Therefore, the objective was to analyze the change in demand (the number of requests for enrollment divided by the number of offered places) for undergraduate health-related studies in Spain during the period 2015-2021 as well as compare the change by region in the pre (2015-2019) and pandemic (2020-2021) period.

Methods

This is an observational (ecological type) study with temporal series analyses using data from public (non-for-profit) higher education institutions from the Integrated University Information System. For the analysis by region, we calculated the demand of all twelve undergraduate health-related degrees and the percentages of change between both periods using the Wilcoxon test. The Joinpoint Regression program was used to analyze the trends in demand for each degree during the 7-year period.

Results

Significant (p < 0.001) increases in demand during the pandemic period were observed in all regions. During the pandemic, medicine, biomedicine, nursing, odontology and pharmacy presented a higher demand in comparison with data collected before the pandemic started. In contrast, this pattern was not confirmed in the following cases: physiotherapy, occupational therapy, podiatry, psychology, social work, human nutrition and dietetics. By regions, Navarra, Asturias, and La Rioja presented the most drastic changes. In regions with the biggest number of universities, such as Catalonia, Andalusia and Madrid, the change observed was smaller.

Psychological impacts of COVID-19 on Vietnamese health workers over the prolonged restricted COVID-19 responses: a cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE

We assessed the psychological impact posed by COVID-19 and its associated factors on the healthcare workforce nationwide during the peak of Vietnam's fourth outbreak.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional study.

SETTING

Our study was conducted in 61 provinces of Vietnam.

METHODS

A total of 2814 healthcare professionals in 61/63 provinces of Vietnam. An online questionnaire using Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Perceived Stress Scale-4 (PSS-4) and Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) scales was distributed randomly to a subgroup of 503 respondents.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES

To determine the impact of COVID-19 on the psychological of health workers, we conducted analyses to test a primary hypothesis related to participants based on three main scales including PHQ-9, PSS-4 and GAD-7 scales.

RESULTS

Nearly half (49.7%) of healthcare workers experienced mild depression symptoms, 34.0% underwent moderate anxiety symptoms and 49.3% reported high-stress levels. Respondents who had a monthly income below 5 million VND (~US$212) and had more than 3 days of duty per week had a higher score on the anxiety scales. Compared with medical doctors, nurses/midwives had lower PHQ-9 (Coef=-2.53; 95% CI=-3.71 to -1.36) and GAD-7 scores (Coef=-2.36; 95% CI=-3.56 L to -1.16). Increased workload and work time was the harmful factor that increase the PHQ-9, GAD-7 or PSS-4 scores. More than half (53.9%) of respondents stated no demand for mental healthcare services.

CONCLUSIONS

Health workers who gained less financial rewards are reported to have higher levels of mental distress than others, implying the need for a raise in basic salary as well as compensation and encouragement schemes. To tackle hesitancy in seeking mental help, integrating online mental health therapy with e-health consultations via social media can be strategically implemented to augment service delivery, and simultaneously enhance the standard of mental health services.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on enrollment in undergraduate health-related studies in Spain

The aim of this study was to determine whether the pandemic has reinforced the choice of pursuing health-related bachelor's degrees, and to identify underlying factors that could contribute to that impact. This is a cross-sectional study using an online survey of 2,344 students of nursing, physiotherapy, medicine, psychology and podiatry who started health-related bachelor's degrees after the COVID-19 outbreak in Spanish higher education institutions. The pandemic influenced the choice of these studies by increasing the desire to help others (33.2%), by increasing citizenship values (28.4%), and by increasing the desire to contribute to improving the situation of the country (27.5%). Women had a significantly greater influence on the increase in social values related to the practice of the profession produced by the pandemic, whereas men and the bachelor's degree in podiatry were more influenced by salary prospects. An increased desire to help others was significantly higher among women and nursing and medical students. Podiatry and psychology were the degrees were most influenced by the pandemic, as more students decided to pursue them, something they had previously doubted, while in nursing, psychology, and medicine the pandemic reinforced their interest in pursuing the degree the most. Students personally affected by COVID-19 reported being more influenced in reconsidering their professional path and in reinforcing their desire to pursue the health-related studies.

Impacts of COVID-19 on career choices in health professionals and medical students

BACKGROUNDS

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in not only significant mortalities in Vietnam but has had an impact on its economy. Previous studies have highlighted how the pandemic has had a marginal impact on Vietnamese healthcare workers working at the frontlines. To date, there have been several other studies examining the impact of COVID-19 on intentions to transition between jobs among healthcare professionals, but this has yet to be explored amongst Vietnamese healthcare workers.

METHODS

To achieve the study's objectives an online cross-sectional study was conducted between September to November 2021. Snowball sampling methodology was adopted for the recruitment of participants. The questionnaire that was used for this study comprised of the following sections: (a) socio-demographic information; (b) impact of COVID-19 on work; (c) risk of exposure to COVID-19; (d) career choices/intentions to change job, and (e) motivation at work.

RESULTS

There were 5727 completed the entire survey. 17.2% of the respondents have had increased job satisfaction, 26.4% reported increased motivation to work, and 40.9% reported decreased motivation to work. Whilst there were changes in the daily work intensity and the level of work-related stress, more than 60% of respondents we sampled did not intend to switch careers. Demographic variables like gender, whether one was a student or an existing healthcare worker, and income related to work motivation. The community's stigma was a negative factor that declined intrinsic motivation as well as decreased work retention.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study is instrumental in identifying the impact of COVID-19 on career choices amongst Vietnamese healthcare workers. The factors identified have clear implications for policymaking.

Factors affecting psychological health and career choice among medical students in eastern and western region of China after COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction

To unearth superior countermeasures that improve psychological health and upgrade the quality of employment for medical students in China in post-epidemic era, this study was designed to determine the possible factors affecting psychological status and future career choice of this population.

Methods

A cross-sectional observational study was carried out. Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) and Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) were applied to measure psychological state. Chi-square and logistic regression analyses were adopted to filtrate related factors for psychological health and employment intention.

Results

A total of 936 medical students, including 522 from eastern universities and 414 from western universities, were enrolled in the study. Anxiety among students in China's western universities was higher than that in China's eastern universities (30.4% vs. 22.0%), but no differences in the occurrences of stress (11.4% vs. 13.4%), depression (28.7% vs. 24.5%) and insomnia (30.7% vs. 25.7%). Grades, academic ranking, household income, attitudes about COVID-19 were associated with the occurrence of psychological problems. In addition, major, education level, academic ranking, family income, and clinical experience may affect the choice of future employment location and employment income. Notably, household income affected by COVID-19 and the perception of epidemic prevention and control resulted in changes in future employment region and income. COVID-19 can lead medical students with psychological problems to have a negative attitude toward future employment. Encouragingly, multiple activities, namely, proactive consideration of employment, taking part in career planning training lectures and timely adjustment of career planning, were beneficial to the professional identity of medical students.

Conclusion

This study suggests that medical student psychology is influenced by COVID-19 and academic and financial pressures; actively coping with COVID-19 and making career planning in advance will contribute to optimizing future employment. Our findings provide a potent guideline for relevant departments to accurately adjust job deployment and for medical students to actively choose a career in the future.

Impact of COVID-19 on the change in work conditions and career choices in general Vietnamese population

Objectives

The onset of COVID-19 has resulted in both morbidity and mortality. It also has a consequential impact on the Vietnamese economy. Prior studies have examined the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare professionals' career decisions. However, no study remains to have examined the work conditions and career choices in a general Vietnamese population. Our study aims to identify factors associated with the change in work conditions and career choices in general Vietnamese population.

Methods

An online cross-sectional study between September 2021 through to November 2021 (during the Omicron COVID-19 pandemic). Snowball sampling method was utilized in recruiting the participants. The questionnaire used in this study included the following questions: (a) Socio-demographic information; (b) impact of COVID-19 on personal habits/daily expenses; (c) Current nature of work and impact of COVID-19 on work; (d) Impact of COVID-19 on career decisions. Data analysis was performed using STATA version 16. Descriptive analysis followed by Ordered logit regression was performed, to identify potential covariates.

Results

Six hundred and fifty participants were recruited, of which only 645 completed the survey. The completion rate was 99.2%. This study demonstrated the impact that COVID-19 has on finances, as only 32% of those sampled reported that they were able to pay in full. 46.6% of the respondents have had a decrease in their overall household income. With regards to their employment and work characteristics, 41.0% reported a decrease in their work satisfaction and 39.0% reported having reduced motivation for work. Females were less likely to consider transiting from their current job to another field than male participants. Respondents who were married, had a higher level of commitment to their current job, and lower inclination to transition to another field. Respondents experiencing financial difficulties were more likely to consider a transition to another field/work.

Conclusion

This is perhaps one of the first studies to have examined the impact of COVID-19 on work intentions regarding career choices and transitions in the general Vietnamese population. Future financial policies must take into consideration these factors.