BACKGROUND: Motivation is the process whereby goal-directed activities are initiated and sustained. Motivation is a crucial factor in academic achievement. The study aims to measure students' demographic factors and external environments' effect on their motivation and determine the impact of students' motivation and self-efficacy on their learning engagement and academic performance. METHODOLOGY: This is a cross-sectional study that involved distributing an online digital questionnaire, which was applied in the capital of Saudi Arabia, "Riyadh." The students' motivation was assessed using three scales that are designed to measure the students' intrinsic/extrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, and learning engagement. RESULTS: In this study, we collected 429 responses from our distributed questionnaire among medical students where males represented 60.1% of the sample. Moreover, we classified the satisfaction level into five subcategories: very satisfied, satisfied, neutral, unsatisfied, and very unsatisfied. We found that most of the students (38.7%) were satisfied with their academic performance, while 17.7% were strongly satisfied. The mean enrollment motivation score in this study was 19.83 (SD 2.69), and when determining its subcategories, we found that the mean intrinsic motivation score was 10.33 (out of 12) and the mean extrinsic motivation score was 10.23 (out of 12). Moreover, the mean self-efficacy score was 9.61 and the mean learning engagement score was 8.97 (out of 12). Moreover, we found that a longer duration needed by the students to reach the college from their residence is significantly associated with lower learning engagement reported by the students (8.54 vs. 9.13 in shorter times, P=0.034). Finally, we found that students who entered medical school as their first choice had significantly higher intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, and learning engagement. CONCLUSION: A student's preference for entering medical school will affect their motivation, self-efficacy, and learning engagement. Moreover, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations significantly correlate with self-efficacy and satisfaction with academic performance; however, they have no effect on the grade point average (GPA) of the last semester. The only factor that positively correlates with students' GPA is learning engagement.
Background Burn injury is a typical physical injury that occurs as a result of a thermal, electrical, or chemical stimulus. Burn injuries to the skin cause complicated issues, including scar marks, psychological impacts, and affect quality of life (QOL). The preferred treatment technique for burn scars is controversial, as attempts to control the contraction rate remain a challenge, often leading to a poor outcome. Thus, treating burn scar patients is one of the biggest challenges in reconstructive surgery. In this study, we aimed to assess the patients' perception of pain and QOL after conservative treatment for burn scars in Saudi Arabia. Methodology This was a cross-sectional study conducted on Saudi Arabian patients who underwent conservative treatment for their burn scars. Information was obtained using a self-reported questionnaire which was distributed online using Google Forms on several social media platforms. MS Excel was used for data entry, while SPSS version 23 was used for data analysis. Results We collected 523 responses to our questionnaire. Among respondents, 70.2% were aged between 18-29 years and 62.1% were single. Most burns were on the upper limbs (74.2%), and 78% of burns were caused by a thermal stimulus (exposure to heat). In terms of emotional status, most respondents did not report significant emotional issues related to their burn scars with a mean emotional score of 12.5 out of 24. Overall, burn scars did not affect the respondents' ability to work or independence in performing daily work. Regarding the impact of the burns on the patients' appearance, 29.4% of respondents reported that their scars bothered them significantly, 64.2% reported that their appearance never bothered them, and 11.5% reported that they sometimes tried to forget how their appearance had been changed. Conclusions We found that conservative treatment of burn scars is effective in controlling the pain associated with the burns and can improve the patient's ability to perform work and other daily activities. However, it did not completely improve the psychological distress associated with scars. Further investigations are required to understand the impact of adherence to conservative treatment for burn scars on the psychological status of patients.
