Observational studyAfrican journal of primary health care & family medicine2020
Conceptualising social accountability as an attribute of medical education.
Observational study in African journal of primary health care & family medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Medical educators' perspectives on the barriers and enablers of teaching public health in the undergraduate medical schools: a systematic review.Global health action · 2022Pooled it
- Value-oriented leadership among nurse managers in multicultural healthcare: a phenomenological study.BMC nursing · 2026Article
- Social Accountability in Medical Student Scholarly Projects: A Call for Intentional Integration.Advances in medical education and practice · 2026Article
- Elements of social accountability in undergraduate health sciences curricula: A scoping review.The South African journal of physiotherapy · 2026Review
- Embedding social accountability through transformative pedagogies: a case study from a South African physiotherapy curriculum.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Critical Issues and the Impact of Technology in Healthcare Professional Education in Low-and-Middle Income Countries: A Call for Transformation: Report of the First Annual Symposium on Healthcare Academic Professionals Education (SHAPE) 2024.Medical science educator · 2025Article
- Article
- Components of social accountability in medical education: a scoping review.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Review
- Adoption of a Comprehensive Approach to Overcome the Challenges Involved in the Implementation of Social Accountability in Medical Education: A Brief Review.Journal of pharmacy & bioallied sciences · 2024Review
- Community service rehabilitation therapists' understanding of social accountability.African journal of primary health care & family medicine · 2024Article
- Perceptions and experiences of undergraduate medical students regarding social accountability: a cross-sectional study at a Subsaharan African medical school.BMC medical education · 2024Article
- Assessing social accountability perspectives among Syrian medical students: a cross-sectional study.BMC medical education · 2023Article
- Perceptions and Experiences of Undergraduate Medical Students Regarding Social Accountability: a Cross-sectional Study at a Subsaharan African Medical School.Research square · 2023Article
- The impact of socially accountable health professional education: Systematic review.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2022Review
- Factors affecting social accountability of medical schools in the Korean context: exploratory factor and multiple regression analyses.Medical education online · 2022Article
- We Need to Rethink on Medical Education for Pandemic Preparedness: Lessons Learnt From COVID-19Balkan medical journal · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundHealth professionals need to be both person- and community oriented to improve population health. For educators to create socially accountable physicians, they must move learners from understanding social accountability as an expectation to embracing and incorporating it as an aspect of professional identity that informs medical practice.
aimThe aim of this article was to assess the degree to which medical students, preceptors and community mentors understand the concept of social accountability.
settingThe setting is the KwaZulu-Natal Province in Durban, South Africa.
methodsUsing an observational design, we surveyed 332 participants, including the first- and sixth-year medical students, physician preceptors and community mentors.
resultsWhilst most respondents understood social accountability as requiring an action or set of actions, it was defined by some as simply the awareness one must have about the needs of their patients, community or society at large. Some respondents defined social accountability as multi-dimensional, but these definitions were the exception, not the rule. Finally, most respondents did not identify to whom the accountable party should answer.
conclusionWhilst the development of professional identity is seen as a process of 'becoming', the ability to define and understand what it means to be socially accountable is not a linear process. Assessment of this progress may start with comprehending how social accountability is understood by students when they begin their education and when they are graduating, as well as in knowing how their educators, both clinical and community, define it.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.