Feedback to Receivers: Knowledge and Perception of Medical Students in a Public Sector Institute of a Developing Country

Background: The practice of effective feedback delivery in medical institutes of developing countries lags behind the modern principles of medical education. This demands the need to understand the students’ knowledge and perception regarding received feedback in the setting of a developing country. Aims: To assess the level of knowledge and perception of feedback among students. To find the correlation between knowledge and perception. To identify problematic areas in feedback delivery and provide recommendations for rectification. Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted in Rawalpindi Medical University Pakistan, in which 480 medical students from 2nd till 5th-year MBBS were evaluated regarding their knowledge and perception about feedback using structured questionnaires. Results: The students had a good level of knowledge regarding The concept of feedback. However, they had a negative perception of the feedback given to them by their teachers. There was no correlation between mean knowledge and perception scores (r=-0.05, p = 0.272). There was a significant difference between knowledge (p=0.0004) and perception (p=0.02) scores across gender. The difference in mean knowledge scores across academic years was not significant (p=0.267) but this difference was significant for mean perception scores (p=0.001). Conclusion: Strategies should be adopted to incorporate feedback into the curriculum for improving the quality of medical education in a developing country.