Change in Medical Student Attitudes Toward Patients with Substance Use Disorders After Course Exposure

Objective Negative physician attitudes toward patients with substance use disorders (SUD) pose a significant barrier to treatment. This study tests the overall and intra-individual change in attitudes of second year medical students after exposure to a 15 hour SUD course. Methods Two cohorts of seco...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Academic psychiatry 2018-04, Vol.42 (2), p.283-287
Main Authors: Koyi, Makeida B., Nelliot, Archana, MacKinnon, Dean, Rastegar, Darius A., Fingerhood, Michael, Alvanzo, Anika, Feldman, Leonard, Neufeld, Karin J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Addictive behaviors
Attitude Change
Attitudes
Course Content
Curricula
Drug use
Empirical Report
Intervention
Medical Education
Medical referrals
Medical students
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Optimism
Patients
Polls & surveys
Psychiatry
Stereotypes
Student Attitudes
Substance abuse treatment
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Summary:Objective Negative physician attitudes toward patients with substance use disorders (SUD) pose a significant barrier to treatment. This study tests the overall and intra-individual change in attitudes of second year medical students after exposure to a 15 hour SUD course. Methods Two cohorts of second year medical students (2014 and 2015) responded to an anonymous 13-item previously published survey exploring personal views regarding patients with SUD using a four-point Likert scale. Students were surveyed one day before and up to one month after course completion. Survey items were grouped into the following categories: treatment optimism/confidence in intervention, moralism, and stereotyping. The Wilcoxon nonparametric signed-rank test (α=0.05) was used to compare the pre- and post- survey responses. Results In 2014 and 2015 respectively, 118 and 120 students participated in the SUD course with pre- and post-response rates of 89.0% and 75.4% in 2014 and 95.8% and 97.5% in 2015. Of the 13 survey questions, paired responses to eight questions showed a statistically significant positive change in attitudes with a medium (d = 0.5) to large effect size (d = 0.8). Items focused on treatment optimism and confidence in treatment intervention reflected a positive attitude change, as did items associated with stereotyping and moralism. Conclusions These results support the hypothesis that exposure to a course on SUD was associated with positive change in medical students’ attitudes toward patients with SUD.
ISSN:1042-9670
1545-7230
DOI:10.1007/s40596-017-0702-8