Attitudes and Practices of Medical Professionalism in Nigerian House Officers: Findings from a Pilot Study

Objective: Medical professionalism are sets of values that healthcare professionals are expected to display in their practice. Unprofessional behaviors among young doctors like the house officers could however have serious consequences for patients’ care. The aim of the study is to explore the house officers’ attitude and self-reported practice of medical professionalism and to determine the possible determinants of good professionalism. Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive online pilot study conducted among house officers across Nigeria. A professional reported survey adapted from Chen et al was used to collect data from the respondents as google forms which were circulated via WhatsApp. The data were subsequently exported to IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, version 22 for univariate, bivariate and multivariate statistical analysis using descriptive statistics, Chi square and multinominal logistic regression respectively. Results: The participating house officers spanned across 24 training hospitals in Nigeria which include Federal, State and private centers. Fifty-nine (59.0%) have a good attitude towards professionalism, while 41 (41.0%) have a poor attitude. Forty-eight (48.0%) displayed good professionalism, while 52 (52.0%) have poor professionalism. The house officers with only MBBS/BDS degree are less likely to be associated with good self-reported practice when compared with those with additional degrees (OR-0.153, p-value= 0.006). Conclusion: Among all the surveyed domains, only the respondents’ attitudes toward healthcare quality improvement showed a significant correlation with self-reported practice further emphasizing that beliefs do not always translate into consistent actions. This is however an online pilot study with sampling and potential selection bias limitations.