A Comparison of Fourth-Year Health Sciences Students’ Knowledge of Gross Lower and Upper Limb Anatomy: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the study was to assess and compare the knowledge of fourth-year medicine, physiotherapy (PT), nursing, and podiatry students in carpal and tarsal bone anatomy.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out. Based on a nonprobability convenience sampling, 177 fourth-year students (117 women and 60 men, mean age of 23.16 ± 3.82 years) from the podiatry (n = 39), nursing (n = 26), PT (n = 73), and medicine (n = 39) schools at a large Spanish university were included. Measurements were taken of their gross anatomy knowledge by means of the carpal and the tarsal bone tests. Students were asked to identify all carpal and tarsal bones in an illustration of the bony skeleton of both regions and were given a maximum of 5 minutes per test.

Results: Of a total of 15 bones to be labeled, the PT (11.07 ± 3.30) and podiatry (9.36 ± 2.93) students had the highest rate of correct answers compared with the medicine (6.13 ± 3.27) and nursing (4.04 ± 3.72) undergraduates. When assessing academic degrees and test scores, significant differences were observed between PT and podiatry participants vs those from the medicine and nursing schools (P < .001).

Conclusion: Fourth-year students from the PT and podiatry programs correctly identified a higher number of carpal and tarsal bones than students from the nursing and medicine schools.