Abstract

Background: Recently, medical education all over the world transfer from the measure of ability of student to recall infor- mation towards evaluation of student performing under simulation or real life. One of the new methods of assessment is portfolio.
Objective: To assess the perception of family medicine residents and trainees in joint program of family medicine in Jeddah toward use of portfolio in their assessment as well as to identify the barriers to use portfolio as a tool of assessment.
Materials and Methods: A quantitative cross sectional survey was done including all residents and trainees enrolled in training from level 1 to level 4 in joint program of family medicine in Jeddah for the academic year 2015–2016. Total number of residents is 110 (males and females). Data were collected by a self-administered valid and reliable question- naire. It is composed of two parts; first part includes inquiry about demographic data of the residents and second part consist of 23 items inquires about information regarding perception of residents towards use of portfolio. Result: The study included 120 physicians. Majority of them (95%) aged between 25 and 34 years. Females represent 60% of them. Nearly half of the family medicine residents (46.7%) reported attending any course regarding portfolio. The highest agreed upon statement regarding use of portfolio was that “writing the portfolio is a stressful process” (weighted mean 4.22 ± 1.10) whereas the lowest agreed upon statements were “the portfolio should be part of every medical program” (weighted mean 1.96 ± 1.00), and “enjoying writing the portfolio” (weighted mean 1.92 ± 0.93). The overall portfolio score ranged between 0 and 44 with a mean of 14.08 and standard deviation of 10.26. The only significantly associated factor with perception score was level of training as family medicine residents and trainees of the first training level had perception toward use of portfolio score significantly higher than those of higher levels of training, p < 0.001. The commonest agreed upon barriers in using portfolio as assessment tool in residency program were increase paper works (4.66 ± 0.80), time consuming (4.60 ± 0.77), little guidance, difficulties in writing, not certain what to include (4.13 ± 1.01) and little emphasis, and interfere with clinical learning. Conclusion: The perception of the family medicine residents in joint program of family medicine, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia towards use of portfolio in their assessment is relatively suboptimal. Attending training courses in portfolio did not improve the residents’ perception.