(105) ENHANCING KNOWLEDGE AND COMFORT IN SEXUAL MEDICINE AMONG MEDICAL STUDENTS THROUGH PROBLEM BASED LEARNING: OUTCOMES OF A PILOT CURRICULUM

Le résumé fourni par la source

Abstract Introduction Sexual well-being is an important component for personal and community healthcare. However, patients report a lack of quality discussion with their healthcare providers concerning these topics. Moreover, while female sexual dysfunction is extremely common, undergraduate medical school curriculum addressing assessment and treatment for these conditions is an underrepresented topic in the United States of America. As a result, medical trainees express feeling uncomfortable discussing and treating diagnoses related to sexual health. Objective We designed and implemented a problem-based learning (PBL) module for third year Obstetrics and Gynecology clerkship students at a large, urban, academic medical center that aimed to augment the standard curriculum and address this educational gap. We assessed students’ knowledge and comfort with the physical, medical, and psychosocial factors related to sexual function and problems before and after the intervention. Methods We designed a sexual medicine PBL that aimed to meet APGO and individualized learning objectives. These objectives included defining physiology and anatomy involved in sexual response, understanding female sexual interest/arousal and genito-pelvic pain disorders, reaffirming how to elicit sexual histories with attention to sexual function, and discussing treatment options with interprofessional teams for various sexual concerns. No validated tool exists to assess these domains in medical students, so a novel nine question pre- and post-survey was created. The first four questions assessed knowledge of the prevalence of sexual dysfunction, methods to address sexual concerns, and common causes of sexual dysfunction. The latter five questions utilized a five-point Likert scale to assess student comfort taking sexual history, understanding the purpose of vaginal dilators and pelvic floor physical therapy (PFPT), creating a pelvic pain differential, and recommending PFPT. A one-tailed paired t-test was used to compare individual Likert scores and composite knowledge scores between the pre and post-test. Results There was a total of 60 respondents. 59 respondents who completed both the pre- and post-survey were included. The pre-survey had an average knowledge score of 18.2% (SD 2.3) compared to 65% (SD 16.0) on the post-test. Students reported significantly higher levels of comfort after the intervention in all domains: taking a sexual history (3.4 vs 4.0, p = 1.21E-09), understanding the purpose of vaginal dilator use (2.73 vs 3.69, p = 1.70E-10) and PFPT (3.64 vs 4.05, p = 3.02E-05), creating a pelvic pain differential (3.09 vs 3.95, p = 9.07E-11), and recommending PFPT (3.37 vs 4.14, p = 7.47E-10). Conclusions The administration of a sexual medicine PBL module significantly improved medical student knowledge and comfort in a broad range of sexual medicine topics. Disclosure Any of the authors act as a consultant, employee or shareholder of an industry for: South Asian American Policy & Research Institute (health equity fellow and receive a stipend).

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.