Emigration-related attitudes of the final year medical students in Croatia: a cross-sectional study at the dawn of the EU accession.

AIM: To investigate the emigration-related attitudes of final year medical students in Croatia at the dawn of the EU accession in 2013. METHODS: All final-year medical students at four Croatian medical schools (Zagreb, Rijeka, Split, and Osijek) were invited to participate in a cross-sectional survey on emigration attitudes. RESULTS: Among 260 respondents (response rate 61%), 90 students (35%) reported readiness for permanent emigration, expecting better quality of life (N=22, 31%), better health care organization (N=17, 24%), more professional challenges (N=10, 14%), or simply to get a job (N=8, 11%), while the least common expectation were greater earnings (N=7, 10%). The most common target countries were Germany (N=36, 40%), USA and Canada (N=15, 17%), and UK (N=10, 11%). In a multivariate analysis, readiness for permanent emigration was associated with an interest in undertaking a temporary training abroad (odds ratio [OR] 6.87; 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.83-16.72), while the belief that the preferred specialty could be obtained in Croatia appeared protective against emigration (OR 0.26; 95% CI 0.12-0.59). CONCLUSION: Despite shortages of health care workers in Croatia, the percentage of students with emigration propensity was rather high. Prevalent negative perception of the Croatian health care and recent Croatian accession to the EU pose a threat of losing newly graduated physicians to EU countries.

Students' Practices and Knowledge on Antimicrobial Usage and Resistance in Split, Croatia: The Education of Future Prescribers.

Aims: To evaluate the effect of biomedical students' ongoing education, we assessed their knowledge and attitudes toward antimicrobial use. Study Design: A cross-sectional study was carried out among the students of four study programs: Medicine in Croatian, Medicine in English, Dental medicine, and Pharmacy. The anonymous questionnaire was distributed to students who attended classes from April to May 2018. Results: A total of 947 (86%) out of 1,107 students enrolled at the University of Split School of Medicine participated in this study. A third of dental students (51/159) and a quarter of medical (113/458) and pharmacy students (32/130) believed that paracetamol was an antibiotic that reduces pain. However, the percentage significantly decreased from the first to the final years. Only 31% of the final year dental medicine students (5/16) named a correct guideline for the usage of antimicrobial drugs, 23% of medical students (18/78), and none in the English program. Pharmacy students were the most informed, since 76% of the final year students (16/21) named Intersectoral Coordination Mechanism for the Control of Antimicrobial Resistance (ISKRA) guidelines. Conclusion: The students showed poor knowledge on the use of guidelines for antibiotic use, highlighting the need for changes in the existing curricula, including a more effective course on antimicrobial prescribing.