Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Career Intention Among Undergraduate Medical Students: A Single-center Cross-Sectional Study in Hubei Province

Abstract Background：Undergraduate medical (UM) students faced the realities of the difficulties inherent in medical careers due to the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. Thus imperative containment measures could affect UM students’ career intentions. There is limited information regarding the factors potentially associated with these students’ career change intentions.Methods：we conducted a cross-sectional survey to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on career intention and the associated factors in UM students in August 2020. Univariate analyses and logistic regression analysis were used to identify the factors that contributed to any change of career intention.Results: A total of 2,040 medical students were contained from Hubei University of Medicine. The change of career intention was related to grade, attitude towards being a health worker and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.Conclusions: Changes in career intentions were particularly influenced by grade, attitude towards being a health worker, and the degree of COVID-19’s impact on the participants’ lives. Treating large-scale public health emergencies in rational way, setting up correct views of occupation choice and building reasonable career planning may reduce the loss of medical talents.