Development of a Prediction Model for Subjective Physical Symptoms Induced During Systematic Anatomy Practice Among Medical Students

Abstract

Summary: To prevent unpleasant symptoms in medical students during systematic anatomy practice, we aimed to develop and validate a model that predicts the likelihood of these symptoms occurring during practice based on risk factors prior to the start of practice. A total of 452 medical students enrolled from 2014 to 2018 were surveyed before and during practice, with questions regarding their sex, psychological status, subjective symptoms, and allergies. The sum of the scores concerning three subjective symptoms related to the eyes and three subjective symptoms related to the nose and fatigue were defined as the “eye-score” and “mask-score,” respectively, and a total score of 7 or more was considered symptomatic. A prediction model was developed based on a generalized linear mixed model; the outcome variable in the model was symptoms during practice, and the explanatory variables were indoor formaldehyde concentration during practice, sex, and pre-practice status, such as the students’ psychological state, eye-score, mask-score, and the presence of allergies. Five-fold cross-validation was used to assess internal validity and the prediction model was applied to 110 medical students enrolled in 2021 to assess external validity. The sensitivity and specificity by five-fold cross-validation were 0.843 and 0.314 for eye symptoms and 0.847 and 0.432 for mask symptoms. In the external validity assessment, the sensitivity and specificity were 0.889 and 0.207 for eye symptoms and 0.879 and 0.532 for mask symptoms. The prediction model developed in this study can be used in future measures aimed at preventing symptoms in students.