Neurophobia: frequency and description of related factors in a Latin American University in 2019

Díaz L.; Velásquez J.; Pérez G. · Neurologia Argentina (2020) · DOI: 10.1016/j.neuarg.2020.07.007

Resumen

Introduction: Neurophobia is the fear of neurological clinical practice. It may contribute to undergraduate medical students to obtain worse scores, it worsens the management of neurological patients by non-specialist doctors and contributes to the decrease in the number of neurologists. Data related to its frequency and related factors to its occurrence in Latin American medical students is limited. Objectives: To determine the frequency, demographic characteristics, and related factors to neurophobia in last year's medical students in a Latin American university. Methods: Analytical cross-sectional observational study at a university in Peru. We made a virtual survey to 6th and 7th-year undergraduate students between October and December of 2019. We used the adapted Schon test to define neurophobia. We used a second questionnaire for demographic description and to measure student's previous personal exposition to neurology, the number of neurological clinical histories, and the type of teaching received. Results: 112 students participated. The frequency of neurophobia was 6.25%. Bivariate analysis showed that the factors with the highest relation to neurophobia were the low level of interest in neurology (OR = 8.00, CI = 1.46 -43.80, p = 0.02), perception of having less neurological knowledge (OR = 5.31, CI = 1.07-26.44, p = 0.04), and have completed less than 4 neurological clinical histories during the career (OR = 6.25, CI = 1.15-33.99, p = 0.03). Conclusions: The frequency of neurophobia was low. Implementing strategies that seek to increase student's interest, strengthen their knowledge, and increase the minimum number of clinical histories made could contribute to reduce neurophobia.

Instituciones: Universidad Científica del Sur