A Systematic Review of Studies on General Medicine Comprehensive Exams in Iran

Introduction: Evaluation is one of the most important stages of education system. Student exams may be used both for student assessment and program evaluation. Given the significance of general medicine exams, the present study systematically reviews studies conducted on these exams in Iran in 2016. Methods: Available documents were systematically reviewed and their information was collected. Using documents available in scientific databases such as IranMedex, SID, Magiran, Medlib, PubMed, Google Scholar, ERIC by appropriate keywords (doctor, general practitioner, student, graduate, trainee, intern, exam, general sciences, pre-internship, skill and medical), 59 studies conducted on general medicine exams until March 2015 were extracted; of these studies, 10 studies which were available in full text and met the least research quality were selected for the review. Results: Out of 10 studies reviewed, 7 studies evaluated the effective factors on results of general medicine exams and 3 studies analyzed the results of these exams. Meanwhile, results of those 7 studies showed that low GPA, delay in passing the basic sciences and age at the time of admission to the university are effective factors on results of exams. Results of three studies analyzing exams showed that genetics and radiology gained the highest and parasitology, orthopedics and physiology gained the lowest average percentage of scaled relative ratings. In analysis of 40 exams during a 20-year period, 65.8% students were passed the exams in the first trial. However, 99.6% of participants continued their education after few trials. Conclusion: The factors such as length of stay in medical school and grand point average of students are predicating comprehensive exam results in all the reviewed studies. Therefore, these factors can be considered as effective factors on results of general medicine exams. Also the results may support the importance of national comprehensive exams as a reliable tool in fostering quality in education