[Case control trial on putative factors antagonising the successful project course of MD thesis projects]

Award of the degree MD has special relevance in Germany since the underlying research project can be started during the qualification for admission to doctoral training. This leads to a large number of thesis projects with a not always sufficiently pronounced enthusiasm and thus poor chances of success. Accordingly a case control study was undertaken in the Department of Human Medicine, Witten/Herdecke University to investigate reported drop-outs of thesis projects.

In autumn 2012 all students in the clinical phases of human medicine education were surveyed using a self-conceived questionnaire on previously initiated or terminated thesis projects, "terminated" is defined as the unsuccessful ending of a project after working for at least 3 months. Individually reported thesis terminations were evaluated using defined items in a 4-stage Likert scale regarding thesis plan and project, subsequently, graduate students who successfully completed a project received the same questionnaire. The items possibly corresponding to process determinants were averaged to a total of 7 dimensions prior to the analysis; the resulting scores were normalised in value ranges 0.0 to 1.0 (1.0 = optimal project situation) whereby individual items could be included in several scores. By means of 5 items a primary endpoint from the faculty's perspective on "compliance with formal procedures" was aggregated; by means of a two-sided Wilcoxon test at the 5 % level students with unsuccessful and successful courses were compared along the corresponding scores.

181 of 276 students from 7 study semesters participated in the screening; details of 17 terminations and 23 currently successful courses could be evaluated in the case control study. For significant differences (p < 0.001) between unsuccessful and successful courses in the primary endpoint, median scores of 0.17 (0.07-0.50) versus 0.73 (0.53-0.83) were estimated.

There were differences between unsuccessful and (as yet) successful courses, especially with regard to the aspects "compliance with formal procedures". Thus a recommendation can be derived in the sense of a stricter and, if necessary, sanctioning demand for formal procedures such as early reporting of thesis projects to the responsible committees. A weakness is the low number of evaluable self-reported drop-outs as well as the overall moderate response rate.