Assessment of Barriers to Knowledge Sharing Among Medical Students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Background Knowledge sharing is a process by which information is exchanged between peers, colleagues, or, at a higher level, between institutions and organizations. This study aimed to assess the barriers to knowledge sharing among medical students at private and public-sector medical colleges in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Methodology An online questionnaire was used to collect data from four medical colleges. Students were selected by non-probability convenience sampling. The English-language questionnaire included 12 questions related to knowledge sharing based on a Likert scale of one to five, with one denoting strongly disagreeing and five strongly agreeing. Out of the 520 questionnaires, 497 (96%) were received and analyzed using SPSS version 23 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Results A total of 497 respondents completed our questionnaire. Most were males (67.8%). Our results revealed that statements such as "afraid to provide the wrong information," "people only share with those who share with them," and "too busy/lack of time" were the most perceived barriers to knowledge sharing (mean = 3.95, 3.61, and 3.60, respectively). Furthermore, female opinions on statements such as "lack of relationship," "afraid to provide the wrong information," "do not know what to share," and "shyness to provide own opinions" were more dominant than male opinions. This difference was found to be statistically significant (p-values = 0.007, 0.020, 0.002, and 0.009, respectively). Conclusions Our study indicated that barriers such as "afraid to provide the wrong information" and "people only share with those who share with them" are important barriers that hinder the process of knowledge sharing. Moreover, most students agreed that "too busy/lack of time" and "lack of relationship" are barriers to knowledge sharing. In addition, statements such as "lack of relationship," "afraid to provide the wrong information," "do not know what to share," and "shyness to provide own opinions" were acknowledged as barriers by female students more than male students. There is a need in the curriculum to structure various types of activities that inspire and promote knowledge exchange among students. Further research is needed to validate our findings.