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. 2024 Nov 26;24(1):1366.
doi: 10.1186/s12909-024-06371-5.

Do Danish medical students feel prepared to deliver healthcare to patients with backgrounds different from their own? A cross-sectional survey

J Sorensen  1 , A L Hindhede  2   3 , J S Ohlendorff  2 , C J de Montgomery  2 , S Maheswaran  3 , M Norredam  2 , A Krasnik  2
Affiliations

Do Danish medical students feel prepared to deliver healthcare to patients with backgrounds different from their own? A cross-sectional survey

J Sorensen et al. BMC Med Educ. .

Abstract

Background: Migrant and ethnic minority populations in Europe are growing, leading to a demand for health systems and health educations to accommodate the growing diversity. Research indicates that health professionals feel inadequately prepared to care for diverse populations, and medical education has gaps in addressing these issues. The aim of the study is to explore whether Danish medical students and newly graduated physicians feel prepared to meet the needs of the increasingly diverse populations.

Methods: An online survey was emailed to students in the four medical Master's programs in Denmark and to newly graduated physicians in clinical internships. Data was collected spring 2023. Descriptive statistics reported overall numbers, and multivariate logistic regression was used to model the association between survey answers and the background variables: semester, gender/sex, parent's education, self-identified ethnicity.

Results: Many medical students and newly graduated physicians feel unprepared to care for patients of backgrounds different from their own. For all items women reported feeling more unprepared than men. Among the medical students and newly graduated physicians with enough clinical experience to answer the question, 34.2% reported feeling helpless at times or often in the past year when treating culturally different patients. Men were less likely than women to report feeling helpless (OR = 0.42; 95% CI 0.28 to 0.64); and self-identified ethnic minorities were 2.59 times more likely than Danish/European medical students and newly graduated physicians to report feeling helpless (95% CI 1.32-5.07).

Conclusion: Our findings indicate shortcomings in medical students and newly graduated physicians feeling of preparedness to provide care to patients of backgrounds different from their own. These findings can assist medical education management with identifying curriculum gaps.

Keywords: Diversity; Helplessness; Junior physicians; Medical education; Medical students; Preparedness.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The study was reported to the Data protection committee at the University of Copenhagen (514–0814/23-3000). The study was conducted in accordance with general ethical codes within the field of research, cf. the Declaration of Helsinki. Data was handled in full accordance with the requirements defined by the Danish Data Protection Agency. According to the Danish Act on the Biomedical Ethics Committee System and the Processing of Biomedical Research Projects, the study was not notifiable to the Danish Research Ethics Committee System, as it did not include biological material. Consent was obtained by asking participants to check a box in the questionnaire. The participants were informed that their participation was voluntary and that they could revoke their consent at any time. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

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