Document Detail


An educational intervention for contextualizing patient care and medical students' abilities to probe for contextual issues in simulated patients.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  20841532     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
CONTEXT: A contextual error occurs when a physician does not identify elements of a patient's environment or behavior, such as access to care, that must be addressed to appropriately plan care. Research has demonstrated that contextual errors can be identified using standardized patients. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate an educational intervention designed to increase physicians' skills in incorporating the patient's context in assessment and management of care and to thereby decrease the rate of contextual errors. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Quasi-randomized controlled trial, with assessments by blinded observers. Fourth-year medical students (n = 124) in internal medicine subinternships at the University of Illinois at Chicago or Jesse Brown Veterans Administration Medical Center between July 2008 and April 2009 and between August 2009 and April 2010 participated and were assessed. INTERVENTION: A 4-hour course on contextualization. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Probing for contextual issues in an encounter, probing for medical issues in an encounter, and developing an appropriate treatment plan. Outcomes were assessed using 4 previously validated standardized patient encounters performed by each participant and were adjusted for subinternship site, academic year, time of year, and case scenario. RESULTS: Students who participated in the contextualization workshops were significantly more likely to probe for contextual issues in the standardized patient encounters than students who did not (90% [95% confidence interval {CI}, 87%-94% ] vs 62% [95% CI, 54%-69%], respectively) and significantly more likely to develop appropriate treatment plans for standardized patients with contextual issues (69% [95% CI, 57%-81%] vs 22% [95% CI, 12%-32%]. There was no difference between the groups in the rate of probing for medical issues (80% [95% CI, 75%-85%] vs 81% [95% CI, 76%-86%]) or developing appropriate treatment plans for standardized patients with medical issues (54% [95% CI, 42%-67%] vs 66% [95% CI, 53%-79%]). CONCLUSION: Medical students who underwent an educational intervention were more likely to contextualize care for individual standardized patients.
Authors:
Alan Schwartz; Saul J Weiner; Ilene B Harris; Amy Binns-Calvey
Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article; Randomized Controlled Trial; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't    
Journal Detail:
Title:  JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association     Volume:  304     ISSN:  1538-3598     ISO Abbreviation:  JAMA     Publication Date:  2010 Sep 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2010-09-15     Completed Date:  2010-09-16     Revised Date:  -    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  7501160     Medline TA:  JAMA     Country:  United States    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  1191-7     Citation Subset:  AIM; IM    
Affiliation:
Department of Medical Education, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA. alansz@uic.edu
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Adult
Education, Medical / methods
Environment
Female
Health Behavior
Health Services Accessibility
Humans
Internal Medicine / education*
Intervention Studies
Male
Medical History Taking / methods*
Patient Care Planning*
Patient Simulation
Physician-Patient Relations
Students, Medical*
Young Adult
Comments/Corrections
Comment In:
JAMA. 2010 Sep 15;304(11):1233-5   [PMID:  20841540 ]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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