Attitudes of final year medical students towards the Primary Health Care programme at the University of Lagos, Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: In Nigeria, Primary Health Care (PHC) forms the basis for an official health policy aimed at meeting the health care needs of the entire population particularly those in rural areas. Despite the acknowledgement and adoption of the Alma-Ata declaration by most countries, as a strategy for achieving health for all, medical educational systems often remain as ivory towers from the health service system. This traditional system of medical education does not adequately prepare doctors in developing countries for their expected leadership role in meeting the health needs for their communities through primary health care.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed at investigating the attitudes of final year medical students towards the PHC programme of the Institute of Child Health and Primary Care of the College of Medicine of the University of Lagos, Nigeria, with a view to provide a platform for on going medical education restructuring.

METHODS: The study was a cross-sectional survey . All the two hundred and four final year (600 Level) Medical students (2005/2006 session) of the College were surveyed by means of self-administered questionnaires on PHC programme relevance, structure, timing, quality of instructions received, observed shortcomings and suggestions on ways to improve programme implementation.

RESULTS: The results showed that, majority (84%) of the medical students admitted that the programme was relevant to their training; in line with their expected leadership role in meeting the health needs of their communities through primary health care; they however indicated that the programme had some areas that were not relevant to this objective. The majority (82.7%) of respondents also indicated that terminating their medical education with the the programme in the final year was inappropriate because they felt that, the final year should be spent acquiring clinical skills. They suggested that it should be taught either before the clinical years, or be incorporated into the clinical years. About two thirds (64%) of the respondents opined that the programme should not be scrapped but that, through better re-structuring and funding, it could be better implemented to achieve desired objectives.

CONCLUSIONS: Medical students complete their undergraduate years with a positive attitude towards PHC but recommended that the implementation of the programme needed to be reviewed to meet the objectives for which it was included in the training curriculum.