INTEGRATED LEARNING OF EPIDEMIOLOGY AND BIOSTATISTICS IN MEDICINE DEGREE: STUDENT ASSESSMENT

The aim of this study was to analyze how medical second-year students assessed the integration of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in a course, and to compare students' perceptions at the onset and at the end of the academic year. Two questionnaires were administered to 102 medical students in order to explore the extent to which they agreed/disagreed with a number of statements using a Likert scale. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare results. Upon completion of the course, 83% of participants reported that Biostatistics and Epidemiology were relevant topics in Medicine, and found it interesting to integrate both subjects. At the beginning of the course, 46.1% of participants thought the course would be interesting, whilst the number of students increased to 69.6% by the end of the course. Regarding the perceived relationship between Statistics and Medicine, the percentage rose from 69.6% to 83.3%. The percentage of students who believed that the subject was relevant in terms of developing fundamental skills for future professional practice rose from 41% at the beginning to 57.8% at the end of the course.