Time trends in the thesis work by post-graduate students of Community Medicine: A record based descriptive study of 40 years

Background: Thesis work conducted by post-graduate students of Community Medicine is critically appraised by not only their examiners but also by many other public health experts and researchers. Issues related to the repetition of work and quality of thesis work is raised by various authors. Objective: To assess the time trend in the thesis work done by post-graduate students of Community Medicine. Material and methods: This is a record based descriptive observational study conducted in the department of Community Medicine of S. N. Medical College, Agra (Uttar Pradesh). Data from all the 66 theses which were submitted by the Post Graduate students of our department till date was collected and assessed systematically. Result: Most preferred areas of research were MCH/Family Planning (28.79%) and Programme/Service evaluation (22.73%). 77.27% of theses were community based, 36.37% were done exclusively in a rural area, 24.24% of theses had children/adolescent as their study subjects and 28.79% were conducted exclusively among females. A knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) or Knowledge, attitude, behavior and practice (KABP) study was part of many theses but exclusive KAP/KABP study was done only in 12.12% of theses. A purposive or convenience sampling was done in only 18.33% of theses, 86.67% were cross-sectional in design and median sample size was 450 participants per thesis. In comparison to the theses done upto the year 2000, theses thereafter were more often based in an urban area and less often done in an exclusive rural area (p=0.0003) and all KAP/KABP studies were done after the year 2000 (p=0.004). Conclusion: There is no repetition or excessive use of KAP/KABP studies in the theses done by post-graduate students of the department of Community Medicine, S. N. Medical College, Agr