On 24 October 2016 at the Department of Internal Diseases No. 1 of Karaganda State Medical University by 4-year students of the Faculty of General Medicine and Dentistry were defended science projects with the use of the principle of research-based learning (RBL).

The students of 4-074Э group E.S. Donkovtseva, A.V. Samoylova, I.L. Kletsko, M.O. Zdornov presented a research project on topic “Informativity of clinical questionnaires in evaluation of functional status of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease”. The topic of the project was chosen on purpose. We timed it to the declared by the WHO the World Day of Spirometry (annually on 14 October) and the World Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Day (on 16 November this year). COPD is a disease with a tendency to spread (in persons over 40 years - 10.1% in the world) and mortality (over 3 million people per year), and with a critical problem of rejuvenation of patients at the age of 25 to 40 years. The first step in early diagnosis of the disease, under conditions of limited capacity of spirometry conduction, may be a survey with the use of standardized questionnaires, risk stratification based on the analysis of questionnaires, followed by selection of patients to perform studies on rate of airflow.

The project is delivered in the form of PowerPoint presentation using videos and photos. The obtained results proved that clinical questionnaires could be used in screening assays for identification of patients with COPD, taking into account the fact that currently there is a tendency to rejuvenation of patients. We decided to continue working in this direction and additionally report on the results at the upcoming student conferences. On 16 November on the World Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Day, we plan to hold an action at the Polyclinic No. 4 in Temirtau on public awareness of COPD, and a small screening assay on evaluation of the prevalence of COPD through the questionnaires.

We express our deep gratitude and appreciation to our supervisor, Candidate of Medical Sciences, Associate Professor Zhusupova A.M. for professional assistance in the implementation of the research project with the use of RBL principle within student independent work. Under the guidance of Aiman Maksutovna we learned to navigate the information space, including electronic databases (Medline, CochraineLibrary, PubMed, Googlescholar, etc.) and library resources; having collected the materials to analyze obtained data and to substantiate the conclusions. The opportunity, given by the Department of Internal Diseases No. 1 to many of us for the first time to participate in such researches, will allow us to become in future the competitive professionals capable of critical evaluation of data accuracy for making a certain clinical decision.

E.S Donkovtseva

Monitor of 4-074 OM group