Brazilian medical students’ attitudes towards patient-centered care

Figures & data

Table

Practice points
•The attitudes of medical students toward the doctor-patient relationship differ by gender.
•The attitudes of medical students toward the doctor-patient relationship evolve over time in the direction of patient-centerednes and gender similarity.
•The beliefs of medical students about doctor-patient relationship differ from cultures.
•Communication skills need to be taught and the provision of patient care needs to be critically examined by teachers and students.

Figure 1. Box plot of total PPOS for the entire cohort (738 students) and semester.

Table 1.  Respondent students number and its percentage of registered students at each semester in FM- UFMG, 2004, August

	Students
Semester	Total respondents	%	Male respondents	%	Female respondents	%
1	146	94.8	75	93.8	71	90.0
5	140	83.8	66	81.5	74	86.0
7	130	80.7	74	83.1	56	77.8
9	105	63.6	59	61.4	46	66.7
10	102	65.0	47	63.5	55	66.3
12	115	74.7	57	71.3	58	78.4
Total	738	77.0	378	75.6	360	78.6

Table 2.  Total PPOS, caring and sharing scores and students gender at the beginning of the medical course

Score	Male	Female	p-value
Total PPOS	4.43 ± 0.39	4.72 ± 0.42	0.000
Caring	5.04 ± 0.47	5.26 ± 0.43	0.003
Sharing	3.82 ± 0.58	4.18 ± 0.58	0.000

Table 3.  Semester' total PPOS score and gender for the entire sample

School semester	PPOS total score	Male PPOS score	Female PPOS score	p-value
1	4.57 ± 0.43	4.43 ± 0.39	4.72 ± 0.42	0.0000
5	4.60 ± 0.41	4.48 ± 0.38	4.70 ± 0.42	0.0009
7	4.67 ± 0.41	4.59 ± 0.42	4.78 ± 0.39	0.0012
9	4.76 ± 0.48	4.69 ± 0.52	4.85 ± 0.42	0.097
10	4.61 ± 0.45	4.55 ± 0.48	4.66 ± 0.42	0.22
12	4.77 ± 0.44	4.70 ± 0.49	4.83 ± 0.38	0.14
Total	4.66 ± 0.02	4.57 ± 0.45	4.75 ± 0.41	0.0000