Iranian medical students’ tendency to migrate and its associated factors

BACKGROUND: Medical staff migration is one of the challenges for both developed and developing countries affecting society’s health and welfare, which limits access to equity. Therefore, this study was designed and conducted to investigate the tendency to migrate and the factors affecting it among medical students of the Tehran University of medical sciences, Tehran, Iran, in 2019. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was performed among 472 medical students using a valid questionnaire which was designed after reviewing the literature and using the opinions of experts. The tendency to migrate and its associated factors were analyzed and reported using the Pearson correlation test, independent t-test, one-way ANOVA test, Tukey post-hock test, and Kruskal–Wallis non-parametric test. RESULTS: According to this study, the tendency to migrate was 6.13 ± 2.82 out of 10. While there was no significant relationship between age, marital status, medical educational phase and the tendency to migrate (p > 0.05); There was a significant relationship between willingness to migrate with variables of gender (p = 0.027), pre-university study region (p < 0.001), father’s academic degree (p = 0.007), mother’s academic degree (p < 0.001), having the relative abroad (p < 0.001), foreign trip experience (p < 0.001), foreign language skills (p < 0.001), number of published articles (p = 0.005) and Iran’s National Elite Foundation membership (p = 0.039). CONCLUSIONS: Females, elites, and those with higher socioeconomic state, previous exposure to foreign countries, the ability to speak foreign languages, and research activity are more likely to migrate. Considering the high tendency to migrate among Iranian medical students, urgent and severe strategies must be undertaken to solve this social and health problem.