Factors Influencing Undergraduate Students’ Preference of Health Sciences Specialties

BACKGROUND: It is necessary to determine what motivates students to pursue a particular specialty of their choosing to maintain a balance of medical practitioners from various disciplines. OBJECTIVE: The study aims to assess factors influencing undergraduate students of Applied Medical Sciences in choosing a specialty or discipline. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted among first-year students of the faculty of applied medical sciences at Taibah University. One hundred and twenty-five participants were enrolled in the study. The students were asked to respond and complete the designed 9-item questionnaire. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (BM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 23.0, Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.) was used to analyze the data. A comparison between departments of the faculty was carried out. RESULTS: 125 participants were satisfied with their current faculty or discipline. They stated that medicine was the first choice (43.2%), followed by clinical nutrition (11.2%), dentistry (8%), diagnostic radiology (7.2%), and clinical laboratory (5.6%). The most important factors that affect students’ choice of discipline were helping patients and the community (32.8%), personal desire (30.4%), personal desire and helping patients (22.4%), and job opportunity and prestige (9.5%), with gender variations. Family enforcement and finances were less frequent factors affecting students’ specialty preferences. CONCLUSION: The human medicine specialization was the first choice for most female and male undergraduate students who entered the faculty of applied medical sciences. Furthermore, the most influencing factor affecting students’ choices was helping patients and the community.