Research Article
Bakare MO
Abstract
Objective: This study examined the influence of demography such as gender, age, marital status and religion on medical education among final year medical students in different geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Methods: This is a cross sectional descriptive study that drew a total of seven hundred and fifty seven (757) final year medical students from ten (10) randomly selected fully accredited medical schools out of a total of twenty seven (27) fully accredited medical schools in Nigeria. Demographic information was obtained from the medical students following completion of their final year postings. Results: The total population of female final year medical students was 300 (39.6%) and 457 (60.4%) for males. The minimum and maximum ages were 19 and 42 years respectively with a mean age of 25.30 ± 2.90 year. Seventy (9.2%) of the 757 final year medical students were married, while 687 (90.8%) were still single. The religion distribution revealed 181 (23.9%) of the final year medical students to be practicing Islam. Five hundred and seventy five (76.0%) of these students practice Christianity and only 1 (0.1%) of the students practices traditional religion. Conclusion: The findings have implication for policy formulation to reduce inequalities observed in medical education in Nigeria.