The purpose of this study is to investigate domestic and international
research trends in studies of
medical students' characteristics by using the scoping
review methods. This study adopted the scoping
review to assess
papers on the characteristics of
medical students. The
procedure of
research was carried out according to the five steps of the scoping
review. The full texts of 100
papers are obtained and are read closely, after which suitable 88
papers are extracted by us for this
research. The
review is mapped by the year of the study, source,
location, author,
research design,
research subject, objective, and key results. The frequency is analyzed by using Microsoft Excel and SPSS. We found 70
papers (79.5%) on a single
medical school, 15 (17.0%) on multiple
medical schools, and three (3.4%) on mixed
schools, including medical and nonmedical
schools. Sixty-nine (79.5%) were
cross-sectional studies and 18 (20.5%) were
longitudinal studies. Eighty-two
papers (93.2%) adopted
questionnaire surveys. We summarized
research trends of studies on
medical students in
Korea and overseas by topic, and mapped them into physical
health, mental health, psychological characteristics, cognitive
characteristics, social characteristics, and career. This study provides insights into the
future directions of
research for the characteristics of
medical students.