The Prevalence and Factors Associated with Mistreatment Perception among Thai Medical Students in a Southern Medical School

Abstract

Objective: To assess the prevalence of mistreatment perception among medical students as well as to identify the types of mistreatment and their associated factors.
Methods: This cross-sectional study surveyed all of the 4th to 6th year medical students at the Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University, from January to April 2017. Three questionnaires were employed: 1) Demographic data 2) Mistreatment perception, and 3) the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-9 Thai version. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results were presented as frequency, percentage, average and standard deviation. The factors associated with mistreatment perception were analyzed by means of the chi-square test and logistic regression. 
Results: Two hundred and ninety-eight medical students (55.0%) completed the questionnaires, 66.1% of them were female. Their mean age was 22.5+1.1 years. As to the medical students’ perception, the majority (63.4%) reported experiencing at least one incidence of mistreatment by attending physicians (53.7%), residents (36.2%)
and nurses (16.4%) within the previous year. The majority of mistreatment types were verbal criticism (59.7%) and discriminative behavior (51.4%). The mistreated medical students reported consequences such as experiencing unpleasant feelings (41.3%) and burnout (35.6%). According to the PHQ-9 Thai version findings, 11.1% of all of our students had depression; however, depression did not correlate with the mistreatment perception. The significant factor that correlated with mistreatment perception was the academic year.
Conclusion: More than a half of the surveyed medical students perceived being mistreated and reported experiencing unpleasant feelings as a consequence.