Necessity of Adding Sports and Exercise Medicine Topics to the Undergraduate Medical Curriculum in Iran

Considering the pivotal role of sports and exercise in health promotion and disease prevention, there is a pressing need for adding the sports and exercise related topics into the medical schools’ curriculum. However, there is paucity of data about the skill and knowledge of general practitioners and interns as well as their interest in topics related to sports and exercise medicine. The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge and interest of interns and general practitioners about sports and exercise medicine related topics. A cross-sectional study was performed in 2009 to determine the knowledge regarding each listed topics of sports and exercise medicine in addition to the attitudes toward insertion of mentioned topics into the undergraduate medical curriculum of 86 interns from Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), and 314 general practitioners (GPs) attending Iranian national congress of general practitioners. In this regard, a questionnaire was developed by consulting with the experts. The mean age of the 81 interns was 26.6 years (23-38 years); while 56 (69.1%) of them were male and 25 (30.9%) were female. For the 287 GPs, the mean age was 36 years (26-46) and 208 (74.8%) were male. The response rate for interns was 94.1% and for the GPs was 88.5%. More than two-thirds of interns and nearly 90% of GPs believed that undergraduate medical students should be trained in the matter of sports medicine topics. The two topics that both interns and GPs agreed on adding into the medical curriculum the most were approach to life-threatening sports injuries and exercise therapy for patients with low back pain. The levels of knowledge and skill among Iranian physicians on major topics of sports and exercise medicine are low to medium. GPs and interns are the first line of patient management so our findings suggest adding some sports medicine related topics into curriculum of medical doctors.