Vulnerability of Social Capital in Medical Education Due to Economic Sanctions: A Qualitative Study

Economic sanction is a planned action by one or more governments to limit economic, commercial, and/or financial relations to exert pressure on the target country. Information about the impact of sanctions on social capital within Iranian society is scarce. Therefore, this study investigated how an economic crisis affects social capital in medical education.

This qualitative study involved conventional content analysis. Faculty members or employees with notable work experience in education in universities of medical sciences constituted the population of this study. Participants were purposefully selected and invited to be interviewed. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were used to collect the data. Eleven interviews were conducted in person, while 2 were conducted remotely via WhatsApp. Data were analyzed using the Graneheim and Lundman method.

Out of a total of 13 interviews analyzed, 161 initial codes were extracted. After removing similar codes and merging the remaining codes, 17 codes remained. Continuous comparison of these 17 codes led to the emergence of 3 subcategories: (1) Damage to ethics, human dignity, human values, and human principles; (2) Reduction of the genetic resources of intelligence and genius; and (3) Damage to human resources and human infrastructure. Finally, we merged these subcategories into 1 category, which we called Damage to Social Capital.

Economic crises or sanctions will unavoidably damage medical science universities' social capital. Creating an ethical charter and using it as the basis for human resource training is advised.