Materials and Methods
This was a questionnaire study using a modified questionnaire with permission from Akl et al.
Participants
The participants were all the final year medical students who were due to graduate from the Zagreb School of Medicine in summer 2013.
Questionnaire
The questionnaire was presented in the Croatian language and consisted of 26 questions in four major question groups: demographic characteristics, emigration intentions, perceived barriers to international training and personal factors (see questionnaire in online supplementary appendix http://pmj.bmj.com/content/91/1076/315/suppl/DC1). All the questions had a closed-ended format and were graded on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from −3 to +3 with the following anchors: 'I strongly disagree' (−3), 'I neither agree or disagree' (0) and 'I strongly agree' (+3). The questionnaire was anonymously distributed online through the use of the Qualtrics software platform. Two email reminders were sent out to students who failed to respond after 24 and 72 h.
Demographic Characteristics. Demographic characteristics included age, sex and socioeconomic status.
Emigration Intentions. The students were asked about their intended country of emigration and intention to return to Croatia following training abroad. They were also asked to identify desired residency programmes along the lines of family medicine, surgical or clinical medicine residency programmes as well as goals that they aimed to achieve through that training.
Perceived Barriers to Training Abroad. The students were asked about the possible constraints to working abroad: financial hurdles, processes of certification and recertification, need to obtain visas and other potential legal barriers.
Personal Factors. These included questions about quality of residency training, professional career opportunities, personal conditions, physician mobility, political conditions and social conditions.
Data Analysis
The data were analysed by descriptive statistics analysis in Microsoft Excel.