DOI: https://doi.org/10.53350/pjmhs221641051 ORIGINAL ARTICLE P J M H S Vol. 16, No. 04, APR 2022 1051 Assessment of knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Plagiarism Among Postgraduate and Undergraduate Medical Students SURESH KUMAR 1 , UMMEHABIBA 2 , AYESHA AHMED 3 , BUSHRA MUNIR 4 , SOBIA MUSHTAQ 5 , NAIMA SHER 6 1 Associate Professor Anesthesia, PIMS hospital, Islamabad 2,3 Senior registrar Obs & Gyne, Quaid-e-Azam International hospital, Islamabad 4,5 Registrar Obs & Gyne, PIMS hospital, Islamabad 6 Senior Registrar Obs & Gyne, PIMS hospital, Islamabad Corresponding author: Ummehabiba, Email: ummehabiba888@gmail.com ABSTRACT Background: Scientific misconduct is a key issue in research these days and plagiarism is common practice irrespective of its awareness and consequences. Plagiarism is a theft of others ideas and intellectual property. We aimed at assessing the level of knowledge and practices regarding plagiarism in our postgraduate and undergraduate medical students. Material and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, (PIMS) a constituent health facility under SZABMU, Islamabad. A total of 100 postgraduate and undergraduate students were enrolled in a period of 6 months from October 2018 to January 2019. Primary outcome measure was knowledge of plagiarism and routine practices of research and writing of the students. Data was analyzed in SPSS software. Results: Females were slightly greater in this study, both PG and UG level students were almost equal in numbers. It was noticed that 16.0% students had no knowledge regarding plagiarism. Similarly, one third (32.0%) were continuously practicing plagiarism as they felt that their peers also do so. When demographic and educational background was analyzed according to plagiarism knowledge, there was no statistical differences observed. Conclusion: Knowledge of plagiarism is not up to mark in medical students. Despite their knowledge regarding plagiarism, still one third were found confessing to continue its practice. Keywords: Plagiarism, Scientific misconduct, Intellectual property, Medical students INTRODUCTION Professional work in the field of biomedical requires honesty to the profession, great commitment and devotion. In this modern era the research is needed to excel in the profession as well as for patients benefit. 1 According to Robert Merton, an ideal quality of a scientist is to have a passion for the truth. Because it is necessary not only for patients benefit in quality care work but also for a good research work. Word plagiarism is obtained from latin word “plagiarius”, which means kidnapping clearly defined as practice of other ideas and text without acknowledging them and considered as own text. 2 Research misconduct usually includes fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, and other unethical behavior in professional medical research. Out of these, plagiarism is most commonly practiced now days, especially for those whose first language is not English. There are many factors contributing in pressurizing the researchers to do this misconduct like to increase the number of publications in less time to get promotions in their respective fields resulting in quantity of work but not the quality. 3 In the past there were various journals magazines available which were the source of plagiarism and it was not so common at that time because it was not easy to plagiarize from them but now the vast electronic media has made it easily accessible for copying text from the pool of research work in just one click without understanding the context and having background knowledge. 4,5 PG and UG students are early birds being researchers in the professional field that’s the basic reason that without understanding the purpose of research work and being overburdened they find shortcuts so do plagiarism unintentionally. There were different studies conducted in the world mostly in India among different health professionals but the clear evidence is still lacking. The aim of study was to compare the knowledge as well as the attitude towards plagiarism in the UG and PG medical students in our institute so that we can analyze the level at which our upcoming scientists are doing this practice. The findings of this research will also be shared with Research and Development department of the University so that special seminars and awareness sessions can be arranged with focus on negating and discouraging plagiarism practices. MATERIAL AND METHODS This cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted in Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, (PIMS), SZABMU, Islamabad from October 2018 to January 2019 after obtaining approval from Institutional ethical committee. The study sample consisted of 100 participants Including medical students and postgraduate residents in SZABMU, Islamabad. Using non-probability based consecutive sampling a structured questionnaire was administered, which was designed according to international surveys conducted for assessing plagiarism worldwide. All the participants were told about the purpose of the study and that their participation would be voluntary. The questions contained demographic details and questions related to knowledge and attitude towards plagiarism, for which idea was taken from previous study Howard SJ and colleagues. All the responses to questions were marked as yes, no, and don’t know, since the major focus was on the awareness and knowledge of respondents regarding plagiarism. The level of knowledge was assessed in the form of poor knowledge, good knowledge, very good knowledge and excellent knowledge. These were defined as if a respondent could not answer more than or equals to one third of questions it was considered poor knowledge, if more than 75% questions were answered it was taken as good knowledge, between 75% and 90% very good knowledge and beyond 90% was considered as excellent knowledge of plagiarism. The data was entered in SPSS version 23.0. Categorical variables like student group, sex and plagiarism questions were analyzed as frequency and percentages. RESULTS Out of the total 100 participants, 54 (54.0%) were females while remaining 46 (46.0%) were male. Similarly, 48 (48.0%) participants were post graduate trainees of FCPS, MCPS and MS/MD while the