Charting medical students’ attitudes and beliefs towards people with chronic pain as they progress through their undergraduate programme: An observational study.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59210/jv2m6y93Keywords:
Medical student, pain attitudes, observational studyAbstract
Background
Healthcare professionals’ (HCPs’) attitudes towards pain influence their pain management. Attitudes about pain should be aligned with the evidence-base at the undergraduate stage of an HCP’s career but pain education at undergraduate level is often lacking, and negative attitudes can pervade HCP practice. Previous studies investigating change in pain attitudes in undergraduate HCPs are cross-sectional in nature and frequently report minimal change in pain attitudes.
Objectives
To investigate medical students’ attitudes and beliefs towards people with chronic pain over the course of their Scottish undergraduate programme.
Design
Five year observational study.
Setting
A Scottish university medical school.
Participants
Medical students were recruited in first year and followed up to their final year (year one n=205/244, year two n=190/245,
year three n=132/279, year four n=110/262, year four n=159/260) for five years.
Outcome Measure
The Health Care Providers’ Pain and Impairment Relationship Scale (HC-PAIRS with scores ranging from 15-105) was completed annually.
Results
A two-way ANOVA found that attitudes and beliefs improved significantly (p<0.01) from first to final year (10.0 10.0). Medics showed a gradual reduction in scores (signifying improved attitudes) annually.
Conclusions
This is the first known published study to chart changes in the same cohort of medical students’ attitudes and beliefs towards people with chronic pain over time. Changes in attitudes improved steadily over the five year medical degree course. Future work should explore which aspects of degree courses, if any, impact upon attitudes and beliefs towards people with chronic pain so that courses can be enhanced accordingly.
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Copyright (c) 2022 Jagjit Mankelow, Cormac G. Ryan, Hayley T Morris, Douglas Lauchlan, Christopher Seenan, Paul Taylor, Denis Martin (Author)
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