Prevalence and associated factors to the emigration intention of medical interns from a public university, Lima 2007

Abstract

Objective. To know the prevalence and associated factors to the emigration intention of medical interns from Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM) in Lima, Peru. Materials and methods. A transverse study was developed from September 2007 to December 2007. Each intern was interviewed at the hospital where the internship was being carried out using a previously validated instrument. Emigration intention was defined as the positive answer to planning to work outside within the next 10 years. The prevalence was calculated with a 95% confidence interval (95% CI), chi2 and multiple logistic regression were used. Results. 202 interns were included, the average age was 25.8 years old, 46% were women, 44% had relatives who were doctors. The prevalence of emigration intention was 38.1% (95% CI: 31.2-45.1%), 70% plan to migrate to Europe and 23% to North America. It was no found any association to the sex, age, hometown, internship hospital, or level of English in the bivariate analysis (chi2, p>0.05). In the multivariate analysis it was found an association to the project of buying a car (OR: 5.0; 95% CI: 1.9-13.1), of having carried out an extracurricular rotation (OR: 4.6; 95% CI: 2.0-10.5), having a salary expectative greater than 6000 soles a month (OR: 4.1; 95% CI: 1.9-8.8), having relatives who were doctors (OR: 3.3; 95% CI: 1.6-6.8) and having presented a research to a student scientific congress (OR: 3.3; 95% CI: 1.2-8.9). Conclusions. Almost two of every five internal medicine of the UNMSM aspire to develop professionally out of Peru, there being associated with it principally factors of economic type