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Family and community medicine medical question bank

Practise every family and community medicine topic with explained SBAs.

Recall Engine has 1,000+ family and community medicine questions across 50+ topics. Every question explains each option.

questions
1,000+
topics
50+
topic notes
50+
clinical skills guides
7
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Family and community medicine by body system

Family and community medicine has 50+ topics. Each section shows how many questions it has and every topic it covers.

Population health and evidence

1,000+ questions across 50+ topics. It also has 50+ topic notes and 7 clinical skills guides.

  • Air pollution: indoor and outdoor
  • Bioterrorism and emerging infections
  • Cancer burden: world and Egypt
  • Climate change
  • Community needs assessment
  • Diet and disease: evidence and the prudent diet
  • Disease control and prevention
  • E-health
  • E-health: information systems in health care
  • Environmental health and climate change
  • Food safety: hazards and the five keys
  • Genogram: family assessment
  • Global burden of disease
  • Global health governance
  • Health counselling: skills and brief interventions
  • Health economics
  • Health education and communication
  • Health programme planning and evaluation
  • Health systems: models, workforce, and resilience
  • Healthcare-associated infections: infection control programmes
  • Healthy diet: reference intakes and food guides
  • Healthy eating across the life cycle
  • Healthy lifestyle
  • HIV epidemiology and testing
  • HIV prevention: PrEP, PEP, and treatment as prevention
  • Hospital policies, plans, and quality systems
  • Immunisation programme and cold chain
  • Injuries: epidemiology and prevention
  • Interpersonal violence: disclosure and safety
  • Investigating a food poisoning outbreak
  • Maternal mortality
  • Neglected tropical diseases
  • Nutrition transition and the double burden
  • Nutritional assessment: population methods
  • Obesity in Egypt: patterns and prevention
  • Occupational health: services and hazard control
  • Occupational history and exposure assessment
  • Occupational history taking
  • Patient safety
  • Paying for health care: financing models
  • Physical activity and health
  • Planning for a healthy diet
  • Polio, rabies, and tetanus: eradication and control
  • Primary care: referral, risk, and safety netting
  • Public health: scope and community diagnosis
  • Quality in health care
  • School, maternal, and family planning programmes
  • Sexually transmitted infections: epidemiology and control
  • Tobacco cessation counselling and follow-up
  • Tobacco epidemic and control
  • Travel health: pre-travel advice
  • Tuberculosis control
  • Understanding the Egyptian health care system and economy
  • Water, sanitation, and waste
  • Workplace hazards: chemical, physical, and mechanical
  • Yellow fever, dengue, and Ebola: control

Family and community medicine sample questions

These 5 are published family and community medicine questions shown exactly as students see them. Open an answer to see why it is right and why every other option is wrong.

Question 1 · Family and community medicine, Clinical

A team has drafted four versions of a leaflet encouraging young mothers to bring children for vitamin A doses. The budget allows printing 50,000 copies once, and the team leader wants to send the favourite draft to the printer this week. What should happen before printing?

  1. A. Adopt a leaflet already used in another country
  2. B. Choose the draft that is cheapest to print
  3. C. Pretest the drafts with young mothers
  4. D. Print the favourite and evaluate it afterwards
  5. E. Ask a panel of paediatricians to choose a draft
Show the answer and explanation

Answer: C. Pretest the drafts with young mothers

Pretesting with people who share the audience's traits, for example focus groups of young mothers, shows whether each draft is understood and acted on. Revise and retest until the audience grasps the intended action, then produce. Pretesting is a named stage of social marketing and avoids wasting a one-off print run.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. Adopt a leaflet already used in another country: Materials from another setting may not fit local language, culture, or literacy without testing.
  • B. Choose the draft that is cheapest to print: Cost does not show which draft the audience understands; a cheap, misread leaflet wastes the run.
  • D. Print the favourite and evaluate it afterwards: Evaluating after printing finds problems only when the single print budget is spent.
  • E. Ask a panel of paediatricians to choose a draft: Experts check accuracy, but they do not show whether young mothers understand and accept the message.

Key point: Draft several versions, pretest them with members of the target audience, revise, and retest until the message is understood before producing health education materials at scale.

References

Question 2 · Family and community medicine, Clinical

Which of the following is an informal cost of cancer to society?

  1. A. Medical equipment
  2. B. Drugs
  3. C. Early retirement
  4. D. Time lost off work (sick leave)
  5. E. Carers' time off work
Show the answer and explanation

Answer: E. Carers' time off work

Informal costs fall on carers and families, including carers' time off work, decreased productivity, and adverse consequences for carers and family. Sick leave and early retirement are indirect costs, while drugs and medical equipment are direct costs.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. Medical equipment: Medical equipment is a direct cost.
  • B. Drugs: Drugs are a direct cost.
  • C. Early retirement: Early retirement is an indirect cost.
  • D. Time lost off work (sick leave): Time lost off work (sick leave) is an indirect cost.

Key point: Informal costs are the costs borne by carers and families, such as carers' time off work.

References

Question 3 · Family and community medicine, Clinical

Which is a requirement of the vaccine refrigerator itself, rather than a rule for how vaccines are arranged inside it?

  1. A. Air spaces between boxes
  2. B. Intact rubber insulation
  3. C. New vaccines placed at the back
  4. D. Temperature checked twice daily
  5. E. Ice packs kept in the freezer
Show the answer and explanation

Answer: B. Intact rubber insulation

Requirements of the vaccine refrigerator are a shaded place away from direct sunlight, a ventilated spot 10 to 15 cm from the wall, intact rubber insulation, a thermometer inside, and a temperature chart. The other options are rules for keeping vaccines in the refrigerator.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. Air spaces between boxes: Arranging vaccines with air spaces between boxes is a rule for keeping vaccines in the refrigerator.
  • C. New vaccines placed at the back: Placing new vaccines at the back is the first in-first out rule for keeping vaccines.
  • D. Temperature checked twice daily: Checking the temperature twice daily is a rule for keeping vaccines in the refrigerator.
  • E. Ice packs kept in the freezer: Putting ice packs in the freezer is one of the rules for keeping vaccines in the refrigerator.

Key point: A vaccine refrigerator needs intact rubber insulation, a thermometer inside, and a temperature chart.

References

Question 4 · Family and community medicine, Clinical

A 74-year-old man is admitted on a Sunday after a stroke; his admission chest radiograph is clear and he has no fever or cough. On the Thursday, calendar day 5 of the admission, he develops fever, purulent sputum, and a new right lower lobe infiltrate. He has not been ventilated. The infection control nurse is classifying infections for the hospital surveillance report. How should this pneumonia be classified?

  1. A. Unclassifiable until the sputum culture returns
  2. B. Healthcare-associated, acquired after admission
  3. C. Community-acquired, as stroke raises aspiration risk
  4. D. Present on admission, as it began within a week
  5. E. Ventilator-associated, as all hospital pneumonia is
Show the answer and explanation

Answer: B. Healthcare-associated, acquired after admission

A healthcare-associated infection occurs during care and was not present or incubating at admission; it usually appears 48 hours or more after admission. Surveillance systems set a day threshold: CDC NHSN counts an infection as HAI when it starts on or after calendar day 3 of admission. This patient had a clear film and no symptoms at admission, and pneumonia began on day 5, so it is a hospital-acquired (healthcare-associated) pneumonia. His older age, comorbidity, and length of stay are risk factors, not reasons to call it community-acquired.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. Unclassifiable until the sputum culture returns: The classification depends on timing relative to admission, not on the organism, so the culture is not needed for this decision.
  • C. Community-acquired, as stroke raises aspiration risk: Stroke is a risk factor, not a place of acquisition; an infection absent and not incubating at admission that appears days later is classified as healthcare-associated.
  • D. Present on admission, as it began within a week: There is no one-week window: infections are present on admission only if they start within the first two calendar days, and this one began on day 5.
  • E. Ventilator-associated, as all hospital pneumonia is: Ventilator-associated pneumonia needs mechanical ventilation, and most hospital pneumonia arises in patients who are not ventilated; this patient never was.

Key point: An infection is healthcare-associated when it was not present or incubating at admission and appears 48 hours or more later; surveillance systems such as NHSN count onset on calendar day 3 or later.

Question 5 · Family and community medicine, Clinical

Which infection is linked to washing fruits and vegetables in polluted canal water during production?

  1. A. Hepatitis A
  2. B. Botulism
  3. C. Typhoid
  4. D. Amoebiasis
  5. E. Fascioliasis
Show the answer and explanation

Answer: E. Fascioliasis

At the production stage, washing fruits and vegetables in polluted canal water leads to fascioliasis. Other production hazards are untreated human manure, which leads to amoebiasis, and animal food, which carries zoonotic diseases.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. Hepatitis A: Food handlers could transmit hepatitis A.
  • B. Botulism: Botulism is the hazard linked to the manufacture stage.
  • C. Typhoid: Food handlers could transmit typhoid.
  • D. Amoebiasis: Use of untreated human manure leads to amoebiasis.

Key point: Washing fruits and vegetables in polluted canal water leads to fascioliasis.

References

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