ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To identify what motivates medical students to join a pandemic emergency healthcare workforce. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Aalborg University, Denmark. PARTICIPANTS: All medical students. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Motivational points as perceived by the students to be important. Demographic characteristics and 11 motivational domains scored on a Visual Analog Scale from 0 (low) to 100 (high) responding to the question: 'To what degree are the following statements important for you to join a national emergency preparedness workforce?' The questionnaire was developed by an expert panel in a process of four iterations. RESULTS: A total of 486 students of 688 (70.6%) completed the survey within 7 days in March 2020. 80% had decided to join the pandemic emergency healthcare workforce. Ranked median scores for motivational statements in each domain were: care, 100; learn, 90; pride, 83; team, 77; needed, 75; safety, 75; supervision, 75; job, 73; duty, 66; salary, 62; historic, 50. Supervision (p<0.001), salary (p<0.001) and duty (p=0.001) were given increasing priority with advancing study years. Interestingly, students added that support by the university and clarification of study plans were priorities. CONCLUSIONS: Results guide decision-makers and colleagues on how to motivate or reinforce medical students in joining the pandemic emergency healthcare workforce. Importantly, students emphasised protection for themselves.
Subject(s)
Attitude of Health Personnel , Coronavirus Infections/epidemiology , Health Workforce , Motivation , Pneumonia, Viral/epidemiology , Students, Medical/psychology , Volunteers/psychology , Adult , Betacoronavirus , COVID-19 , Choice Behavior , Cross-Sectional Studies , Denmark/epidemiology , Education, Medical , Female , Humans , Male , Pandemics , SARS-CoV-2 , Salaries and Fringe Benefits , Surveys and Questionnaires , Young AdultABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Human height is a simple measure with great applicability. Usually, stadiometers are used to measure height accurately. However, these may be impractical to transport and expensive. Therefore, we developed a portable and low-cost laser height metre (LHM). OBJECTIVE: We aimed to (1) determine intrarater and interrater reliability of our LHM and compare it to a wall-fixed stadiometer, (2) examine its agreement with the same stadiometer, and (3) determine the minimum number of recordings needed to obtain an accurate and reliable height measurement using the LHM. METHODS: We recruited 32 participants (18+ years)-both men and women. Two raters performed assessments on the same day blinded to each other and their reference standard measurements. We calculated intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), coefficient of variation (CV), standard error of measurement (SEM), and Bland-Altman plots with limits of agreement (LOA). RESULTS: For both the LHM and stadiometer, we found ICC values of 0.99-1.00 (95% CI: 0.997-1.000) for both intrarater and interrater reliability. Regarding LHM intrarater reliability, SEM, CV, and LOA were 0.34 cm, 0.16%, and -1.07 to 0.73 cm, respectively. In terms of LHM interrater reliability, SEM, CV, and LOA were 0.27 cm, 0.12%, and -0.32 to 0.84 cm, respectively. As to agreement with stadiometers using one measurement, the mean difference was -0.14 cm and LOA ranged from -0.81 to 0.77 cm. CONCLUSION: A portable and low-cost LHM, for measuring body height once, showed an excellent reproducibility within and between raters along with an acceptable agreement with a stadiometer thereby representing a suitable alternative.
