Biostatistics, epidemiology and vital statistics: an investigation of thedifficulty of courses undertaken by medical students in Raipur, India

摘要

BackgroundBiostatistics, epidemiology, and vital statistics are an essential part of evidence-based medicine. They are usedto generate results and analyze collected data. They are considered to be an important component of researchstudy design for medical professionals. Medical students need to be able to understand such evidence and howit is presented in the literature, as well as be able to make decisions about patient care based on this. Past studieshave noted that students find biostatistics difficult when compared with other components of the communitymedicine module, including epidemiology and vital statistics. The aim of this study was to assess how difficultstudents find biostatistics, epidemiology and vital statistics, assessing each topic individually and overall, as allthree are taught to medical students under the community medicine module in medical schools. Secondly, weassessed if there was any difference in difficulty based on gender.MethodsA cross-sectional observational study was conducted among 174 undergraduate medical students undertakingexternal examination, using a set of three questions related to the biostatistics, epidemiology and vital statisticsmodules. The questions were attempted after 25 hours of teaching. Data were collected and entered inMicrosoft Excel and analyzed using IBM SPSS version 23.0 software.Results51 of the students were female, 49 were male. Female students correctly answered 46.1 of biostatisticsquestions, 78.7 of epidemiology questions, and 78.7 of vital statistics questions. Male students correctlyanswered 40.0 of biostatistics questions, 62.4 of epidemiology questions and 52.9 of the questions on vitalstatistics. Overall, the male students showed greater difficulty in completing this key community medicinemodule than females. Both genders found biostatistics more difficult than either epidemiology and vitalstatistics, but the difference in difficulty was greater for male students.ConclusionThis study identifies challenges with the teaching of statistical subjects in medical schools which needs to beaddressed, particularly with regard to the performance of male students and to the teaching of biostatistics.