Prediction of intended career choice in family medicine using artificial neural networks

Figures & data

Table 1. Preference for family medicine in 316 final-year medical students.

Students’ intention to become a family physician (n = 316)	Frequency	Percentage	Class
1 (Family medicine is not my career choice at all)	24	7.6%	Family medicine
2	80	25.3%	disinclined
3	115	36.4%	(Neutral)
4	83	26.3%	Family
5 (Family medicine is my career choice for sure)	14	4.4%	medicine inclined

Figure 1. Classification accuracy arising from adding the best item at each step of the SFS procedure (MLP with one hidden neuron, H = 1).

Figure 2. Classification accuracy in MLP models of different complexity (regarding the number of hidden neurons H) when adding the first 20 items.

Table 2. Twelve most important attitudes for discrimination between students regarding their preference for family medicine (analysed by SFS with ANNs, starting from a list of 164 attitudes, based on the European definition of family medicine and the EURACT Educational Agenda). The mean values and the standard deviations (SD) of both groups in the Likert scale are given in the second and in the third column.

Attitude (item)	Mean (SD) of family medicine disinclined (n = 104)	Mean (SD) of family medicine inclined (n = 97)	p	Connotation
1 Working always with the same people is boring (item 41)	3.50 (1.73)	2.25 (1.49)	< 0.001	−
2 The public healthcare system does not provide quality care (item 124)	3.08 (1.78)	2.21 (1.33)	< 0.001	−
3 Physicians educate by being a role model (item 104)	5.64 (1.41)	6.16 (1.12)	0.004	+
4 Trivial health problems are often the ticket to deal with serious health problems (item 31)	4.52 (1.58)	5.09 (1.39)	0.007	+
5 Without good communication one cannot work well in the practice (item 53)	6.23 (1.11)	6.71 (0.68)	< 0.001	+
6 It is important to know insurance policies while working in the practice (item 121)	6.15 (1.13)	6.52 (0.77)	0.008	+
7 Home visits are an outdated form of physicians’ work (item 86)	2.71 (1.55)	1.91 (1.20)	< 0.001	−
8 Referrals are a method of achieving equitable access to the secondary level (item 78)	5.24 (1.47)	5.81 (1.23)	0.003	+
9 A physician must be familiar with the principles of the health care system (item 140)	5.80 (1.33)	6.38 (0.74)	< 0.001	+
10 Preventive work is the key to health (item 109)	5.70 (1.33)	6.16 (0.95)	0.005	+
11 The psychological aspect of the disease is often just as important as the physical aspect (item 98)	6.04 (1.09)	6.46 (0.87)	0.002	+
12 Physicians should lead the patients through the health care system (item 17)	4.67 (1.46)	5.27 (1.25)	0.002	+