Comparing Self-Perceived Awareness with Actual Awareness of the Podiatric Medicine Profession Among High School and College Students.

Abstract

Background: During the past few years there has been a decrease in the number of applicants to podiatric medical school. It has been suggested that this decrease may be due to unfamiliarity with the profession of podiatric medicine. The goal of this study was to shed light on the misconceptions and lack of awareness of podiatric medicine so that the profession can better bridge the gap in knowledge with a resultant strategy to better increase recruiting efforts. We hypothesized that high school and college students overestimate their awareness of podiatric medicine and that a significant percentage of students have low actual awareness of the profession. It is presumed that this shortfall is greater in high school students.

Methods: An eight-question self-completion survey was created that analyzed self-perceived and actual awareness of the podiatric medicine profession. A total of 318 students (171 high school and 147 college) attending school in Arizona completed the survey to test their actual and perceived knowledge of podiatric medicine.

Results: A total of 294 survey responses met the inclusion criteria and were used in the final evaluation of data. In total, 57.1% of high school students and 47.9% of college students described their knowledge of podiatric medicine as "poor." Each of the five true/false questions were answered incorrectly more than 50% of the time. Overall, there was a statistically significant association between students' perceived knowledge of podiatric medicine (good and higher, fair, or poor) and their actual knowledge.

Conclusions: Evidence supports that many high school and undergraduate students are unaware of the podiatric medicine profession. Furthermore, there are many misconceptions that are believed about the profession that could be causing the recent decline in applicants.