Medical Undergraduate Perception on the Knowledge of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): Survey Based Study at Different Levels of Curriculum

Background: Sufficient and thorough knowledge in early recognition of symptoms and proper management of ASD is of utmost importance to medical graduates in the initial years of their learning in medical school. Their knowledge regarding ASD will be helpful when they become health care professionals as it will be easy for proper management of ASD. Our aim is to evaluate and analyze medical undergraduate student  Method: Total of 221 undergraduate medical students studying in Preclinical, para clinical and early clinical phase of MMMC, participated in this questionnaire based survey study.  Close ended questionnaire which was validated and proved to be reliable was given to students to assess their level of knowledge about ASD. Results of data were analyzed using SPSS software Results: Total mean score for the preclinical students was 5.91±2.90, for para-clinical it was 7.30±3.00 and that for clinical year students (students in 3rd year of medical school) it was 9.42±2.20 out of 14. The knowledge about ASD among the students significantly increased alongside their curricular levels (p<0.05). Conclusions: Overall knowledge of medical undergraduate students about the ASD at their preliminary curricular stages is inadequate. But, there was a significant improvement as their curriculum progresses which reflect the academic up gradation among the medical students and their positive attitude towards ASD. 

Keywords:

Autism spectrum disorder , Student Perception , Knowledge