Despite textbooks popularity, no studies were conducted before to evaluate textbooks’ effectiveness in regards to their benefits in increasing personal satisfaction through increasing medical knowledge, improving exam performance and helping students find needed information. Thus, we aim at investigating the perceived benefits of textbooks in regards to these three factors.

This was a cross-sectional, survey-based study where subjects (N=251) would autonomously rate the effectiveness of textbooks using 5-point Likert scales. The Chi-squared tests, followed by post-hoc tests were utilized to detect any associations between the categorical variables. Moreover, Spearman’s correlation test was used to assess the significance, strength, and direction of correlations among ranked data. Finally, Kruskall-Wallis test was used to determine differences in students’ self-ratings of ranked variables based on grouped items.

There were positive correlations between students’ GPA and their ratings on how books help them increase their personal satisfaction to increase their medical knowledge, (P=0.006) and perform better in exams (P=0.001). Furthermore, Students who use medical textbooks as a primary source for information or as a reference tend to have better rankings in books helping them find needed information in comparison to their peers who use them as an aiding resources (P=0.001, P=0.017). Interestingly, these findings were similar in all years and in both genders.