MEDICAL STUDENTS' PERCEPTION OF NEUROLOGY
Bajram KAMBERI, Drenusha KAMBERI
Abstract
Background: As neurophobia (fear related to neurology) seems to be a problem seen worldwide, we were interested in assessing whether neurophobia existed among medical students at the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Tetovo. This study aims to assess the attitudes of medical students towards Neurology in relation to perceived interest, difficulty, knowledge and confidence in learning the neurology subject compared to four other medical subjects. Methods: During the study period (January-March 2025), general medicine students in the 2013-2020 and 2021-2025 academic years were invited to respond to an anonymous questionnaire, using Google forms distributed on the Internet. Results: Total, 125 students answered the anonymous questionnaire 83 female (66.4%) and 42 males (32.6%). The most favorites subject among medical students were Internal medicine (26.4%) and Neurology (24%), respectively, while Dermatovenerology was ranked third (6.4%). The current level of knowledge among medical students was most for subject Internal medicine (16%), Neurology (9.6%), Infectiology (4.8%), Dermatovenerology 5 (4%), while Epidemiology (3.2%) was ranked fifth. The most difficult subject for majority of medical students (27.2%) was Neurology. Among medical students, most participants were less confident when dealing with patients with headaches (19.2%), dizziness (10.4%), and leg numbness (5.6%) when compared to other non-neurological complaints. Conclusions: Neurophobia is also widespread among students of general medicine at the University of Tetova and the findings of the first survey on neurophobia in this study sample are consistent with those of similar studies. Further studies are required to identify the extent of the problem.
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