AUTHOR=Alzain Amel F. , Elhussein Nagwan , Hamd Zuhal Y. , Fadulelmulla Ibtisam Abdallah , Omer Awatif M. , Alotaibi Ahoud , Alsuhaymi Amani , Aljohany Maram , Alharbi Najwa , Ahmed Amna Mohamed , Hussien Rehab , Elamin Badria Awad , Mohamed Ahmed Medani Afaf , Khandaker Mayeen Uddin TITLE=The impact of health volunteering of radiology students on improving their self-skills and practical capabilities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medicine VOLUME=10 YEAR=2024 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2023.1243014 DOI=10.3389/fmed.2023.1243014 ISSN=2296-858X ABSTRACT=Background

Volunteering is a beneficial activity with a wide range of positive outcomes, from the individual to the communal level. In many ways, volunteering has a positive impact on the development of a volunteer’s personality and experience. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of health volunteering on improving the self-skills and practical capacities of students in the western region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Materials and methods

The study was a descriptive cross-sectional electronic web-based survey that was submitted on a web-based questionnaire; 183 students answered the survey, and then, the data were analyzed using SPSS.

Results

This study shows that 95.6% of participants agree and strongly agree that the health volunteering experience was useful, 2.7% of the participants neither agree nor disagree, and 1.6% disagree and strongly disagree. Regarding the distribution of the participants on skills learned from volunteering experience, the largest proportion of student (36.1%) volunteers in the health sector acquired communication skills and the smallest proportion of student (14.8%) volunteers in the acquired time management skills. Regarding the disadvantages, 81.4% of the participants do not think there were any disadvantages to their previous health volunteering experience, while only 18.6% of them think there were any disadvantages to their previous health volunteering experience. Additionally, the study found that the type of the sector affects the skills acquired from health volunteering.

Conclusion

Research revealed that the majority considered volunteering a great experience. Volunteering increased the self-skills and practical capacities of radiology students, which proved the hypothesis.