Postgraduate residents' perception of the clinical learning environment; use of postgraduate hospital educational environment measure (PHEEM) in Pakistani context

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the perception of postgraduate residents about the clinical educational environment and to investigate the association of their perception with different specialities and years of residency.

Methods: The study was conducted in August 2016 at The Children's Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan, and comprised postgraduate residents who were asked to complete postgraduate hospital educational environment measure questionnaire. The residents' individual perception scores were calculated and the means of both individual domain and global score of the questionnaire were compared by different specialities and different levels of residency training year. SPSS 20 was used for statistical analysis.

Results: Of the 160 residents who completed the questionnaire, 114(71.3%) were related to paediatric medicine. The residents perceived their educational environment positive with a global mean score of 88.16±14.18. Autonomy and teaching were rated most highly by paediatric diagnostic residents, i.e. 32.23±8.148 and 36.23±9.010, respectively. Social support was rated the highest by paediatric surgery residents 24.36±4.653. There was no significant difference of perception between different specialities (p=0.876) or different years of residency (p=0.474).

Conclusions: Postgraduate hospital educational environment measure can be used to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses in a hospital environment. Educational environment of study site was more positive than negative.

Keywords: Postgraduate, Residency training, Perception, Hospital environment..