Reading Habits Among sample of Hawler Medical College Students in Erbil

Abstract

Background and objectives: Acquiring knowledge through reading is crucial for learning process to improve the teaching methods. Aim of study is to know level of reading habits, how to access books and causes of decline in reading in addition to subjects of interest for reading.

Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional study was carried among a random sample of Hawler College of medicine in Erbil City from 22nd of January to 25th of February 2015, including 200 students from third and fourth stage using a self-administered ques- tionnaires. Data entered to OpenEpi version 2.3 and chi-square was used to test significant association at p?0.05.

Results: Among those 200, 106 (53%) were males, 177(91%) with medium socioeconomic state. One hundred fifteen students read in their spare time, 43% read more than 1hour/day, 43% read in Kurdish language, 42% prefer print books to be read at home, 37% get information of reading materials from book store, 67students (50%) would like to read medical books followed by religious books 56(49%) with gender difference which is highly significant (p<0.001). Half of total participants (50%) said that there is decline in reading habits and the major cause was lack of interest of reading followed by television. The main inspira- tion for reading was self-interest followed by parent’s encouragement.

Conclusions: It is important to create an atmosphere comfortable to reading at home, educational institutions and libraries. Again, faculty staffs should engage students in several assignments and presentations and these should form a greater part of the assessment process of students.