Disability knowledge, attitudes and beliefs among medical students

Purpose: To demonstrate that disability knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of medical students before and after disability modules can increase. The content of instruction will be described to foster replication.

Methods: A survey including knowledge, attitudes and beliefs is administered in the 2nd year before the first didactic lecture. This lecture focuses on disability prevalence and health issues with an emphasis on cognitive and physical disabilities. The survey is then repeated before and after the 3rd year Family Medicine rotation. During the Family Medicine rotation, students are exposed to many patients with disabilities and receive a second didactic lecture that focuses on primary care of patients with permanent disabilities.

Results: Medical students felt less awkward and less sorry for a person with an obvious disability after the disability modules (p<0.0001). Students increased their knowledge of how to transfer a person with a mobility impairment from 48% to 66%. Students demonstrated proper first person language improvement from the initial survey to the final survey (p<0.0001). Students ability to identify characteristics of people with MR increased from 35% to 71% (p<0.001). Finally, student evaluation of the disability instruction indicates they are learning new content and they value the practical suggestions for their practice of medicine.

Conclusions: Medical student's knowledge and attitudes about disability can be substantially improved following instruction that provides practical content related to primary care. The content of the lectures will be provided to encourage replication at other medical schools.