Prevalence of Intimidation of Medical Students in the Clinical Years by the Staff at a Saudi Arabian University

TL;DR

This study found that 60% of medical students at a Saudi Arabian university experienced intimidation from staff, with verbal abuse being the most common form.

Contribution

The study provides new prevalence data on staff-to-student intimidation in a Saudi Arabian medical school setting.

Findings

60.1% of 311 students reported experiencing some form of intimidation.

Verbal abuse was the most common type, affecting 53.1% of students.

Only 4.2% of students reported experiencing sexual abuse.

Abstract

Background: Intimidation of medical students by the staff appears to be an evolving problem. Our study aimed to determine the prevalence of intimidation among medical students by the staff, identify the types of intimidation that exist, and recognize the barriers that stand in the way of reporting any incident of intimidation.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among medical students in their clinical and final years at the College of Medicine, Taibah University (TU), Al-Madinah Al-Munawwarah, Saudi Arabia. Students were invited to voluntarily complete an anonymous survey that explored students’ exposure to any type of intimidation, including verbal, physical, and sexual abuse, and academic intimidation.

Results: A total of 311 medical students participated in our study, with 164 females and 147 males. Of these, 187 (60.1%) students reported having received some sort of intimidation. The most testified type of intimidation was verbal abuse (165, 53.1%). Following that, in order of frequency, were academic intimidation (101, 32.5%), physical intimidation (25, 8.0%), and sexual abuse (13, 4.2%).

Conclusion: Our study revealed a high rate of intimidation between the staff and medical students at our institution. Verbal abuse was the most popular type of intimidation. Promoting a more positive learning environment for medical students by managing the teacher-student relationship is crucial to improving students’ learning outcomes. Medical schools should resist intimidation through strict guidelines.

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