Development Strategies in Medical Education

Introduction
The mission of universities is to respond to the needs and expectations of the society and their students. Determining the student satisfaction is the most important indicator of quality in universities. Given the importance of understanding student satisfaction in higher education institutions, and the necessity for universities to continuously measure student satisfaction in order to achieve higher quality, this study aimed to assess the level of satisfaction with educational and research processes (such as teaching quality, counseling and guidance of advisors, services of the Office of Academic Affairs, internships, practical and experimental courses, etc.) in students of Saveh University of Medical Sciences (SUMS). We also aimed to identify the factors influencing student satisfaction.

Methods
This is a descriptive-analytical study with cross-sectional design that was conducted at SUMS in the academic year 2022-2023. The study population consists of all students in various fields of study (Environmental Health, Occupational Health, Emergency Medical Services, Health Information Technology, Public Health, Nursing, Anesthesia, Operating Room, and Midwifery) at SUMS who had completed at least one semester. A stratified random sampling method was applied to select samples, proportional to the number of students in each department. The required sample size was calculated to be 85. A researcher-made questionnaire with 71 items measuring various aspects of educational services was used to measure student satisfaction. Obtained data were analyzed in SPSS software, version 22 using Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis test. The significant level was set at 0.05 for all tests.

Results 
The mean age of the students was 21.28 ± 3.12 years. Among participants, 64% (n=73) were female. The duration of study at the university for 34.2% of the studied students was less than one year; for 28.1%, 1-3 years, and for the rest was more than 3 years (37.7%). Overall satisfaction with educational processes in all areas was at a high level, except for “practical and experimental courses”, “student evaluation”, and “research workshops”. The Mann-Whitney U test results showed a significant difference in the level of satisfaction with the services provided by the Office of Academic Affairs process based on gender (P=0.038). The Kruskal-Wallis test results showed a significant difference in the level of satisfaction with “counseling and guidance of advisors” (P=0.04), “student evaluation” (P=0.009), “library” (P=0.001), and “internship and apprenticeship” (P=0.003) based on the fields of study.

Conclusion 
The overall satisfaction of students with the existing educational services and processes at SUMS is at a good level. Factors such as the field of study, duration of the study in the university can affect student satisfaction with educational programs and processes. Educational planners should pay attention to these factors. Measuring satisfaction levels alongside any necessary modifications to educational programs and processes can help the SUMS achieve a better understanding of the quality of their services. The “practical and experimental courses”, “internship and apprenticeship” and “research workshops” at SUMS need to be improved.

Ethical Considerations
Compliance with ethical guidelines
Ethical issues have been completely observed by the authors. The Ethics code of this study was IR.SAVEHUMS.REC.1398.012.

Funding
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Research Council of Saveh University of Medical, Saveh, Iran for partial financial support.

Authors' contributions
Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Project administration, Methodology, Data curation, Conceptualization: Edris Hoseinzadeh; Writing – original draft, Validation, Data curation: Mokhtar Mahdavi;  Methodology, Data curation: Melika Memari and Mahdi Safari.

Conflicts of interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Research Council of Saveh University of Medical, Saveh, Iran for partial financial support.


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