Analyzing the attitude of medical students toward class absenteeism

Background: Class attendance is very important to improve academic performance in medical education. National Medical Commission has made it mandatory to have 75% attendance to appear in the university examination. Classroom teaching is necessary to develop competence in cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. The purpose of the present study was to analyze the causes of absenteeism in medical education. Methodology: This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted from phase 1 to phase III MBBS students of Government Medical College Srinagar, J and K, India. The response was collected through a structured, pretested, and prevalidated questionnaire. The attitude of medical students towards class absenteeism was obtained using the Likert scale. The response was analyzed using SPSS 22 software. Results: The results showed that major reasons for student absenteeism were poor teaching skills of teachers (mean 3.85), students studying through Self directed learning (SDL) (mean 3.75), unfavorable learning environment (mean 3.43), lack of sleep (mean 3.28), distraction due to concentration problems (mean 3.26) not interested with that subject (mean 3.09), ill-health (mean 2.57), traffic jams (mean 2.53), social media (mean 2.45), climatic conditions (mean 2.37), availability of online resources (mean 2.84), too much self-confidence (mean 2.61), lectures, not enough informative (mean 2.49), family issues (mean 2.01). Conclusion: The causes of student absenteeism are varied. Teachers have to be friendly and cooperative so that students can overcome their inhibitions and weaknesses. Constructive feedback and mentoring programs should be part of the curriculum.