Maltrato en el pregrado de la carrera de Medicina: percepción de los estudiantes / Students' perception about mistreatment in undergraduate medical training

ABSTRACT

Background: Alarms about mistreatment in medical education have been raised for almost 30 years. Aim: To describe the frequency of abuse reports among medical students at a university in Chile, investigating their association with age, sex, and educational level. Material and Methods: The Mistreatment by Teachers Questionnaire was applied to 264 first to seventh year medical students (54% males). An exploratory factorial analysis of the instrument was performed, a descriptive analysis was made and its relationship with age, sex and level of training were evaluated. Results: Ninety eight percent of respondents reported having been mistreated at least once. Mistreatment was grouped into three factors with a confidence ranging between α = 0.79 and 0.93, namely demoralization, deregulated demands and physical aggression. The first two were associated with age and level of education. There were no differences by sex. Conclusions: Mistreatment is common in undergraduate medical education, as it has been found in other universities around the world.