Critical Thinking Level among Medical Sciences Students in Iran

Background. Critical thinking is one of the most important missions of the educational planning system of medical sciences universities around the world. Hence, identifying the level of critical thinking skills and tendency of medical sciences students to think critically is of great importance. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review was to examine the critical thinking level in medical sciences students in Iran. Methods. To extract published studies in the field of critical thinking in Iran, a search was conducted in the databases of PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, ERIC, and Magiran. The keywords of critical thinking, medical sciences, and Iran were used for the purpose of the search in the two languages of Persian and English and without any time limit. The PRISMA flow diagram was applied for the selection of articles, and the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale was used for the evaluation of these papers. Results. After evaluating the quality of searched articles, 80 articles were finally selected for the final analysis. The total sample of the articles included 12,578 students. The results indicated that out of 51 articles conducted in the field of critical thinking skills, 48 articles reported these skills at a low level, 2 papers at a medium level, and only 1 paper at a high level in the medical sciences students. Among 29 articles in the field of the level of critical thinking disposition, 13 articles reported their tendency level at a low level, 11 articles at a medium level, and 5 articles at a high level. Conclusion. In general, based on most articles, the level of critical thinking skills in the medical sciences students in Iran was reported to be at a low level and their tendency to critical thinking at a moderate level and low level. Therefore, given the importance of critical thinking for medical sciences students, future studies should consider factors influencing the increase of the critical thinking level in these students. In this regard, formation of some training workshops can also be promising. Furthermore, reviewing the medical sciences curriculum should be taken into consideration by the policymakers and educational planners so as to strengthen the level of critical thinking in the medical sciences students.