Medical Student Attitudes Toward Substance Use Disorders Before and After a Skills-Based Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) Curriculum.

PURPOSE

Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) is an evidence-based framework for assessing and addressing risky substance use. This study evaluated the substance-related attitudes of medical students who participated in an Enhanced Pre-Clinical SBIRT Curriculum designed to reduce stigma, help students empathize with the experiences of people using alcohol and drugs, understand substance use in-context, and feel more optimistic about efforts to prevent and treat substance use disorders (SUDs).

METHODS

Students (N=118; 73.8% of eligible) completed the Attitudes and Opinions Survey for alcohol and drugs before and after this 2-year, multi-modality curriculum. The authors classified attitudes as "positive" or "negative" and grouped students by pre-post attitudinal change: persistently negative, persistently positive, negative-to-positive, positive-to-negative. Using chi-square tests, the authors assessed differences by sex, race/ethnicity, and whether students had a family member or friend with an SUD.

RESULTS

Most students (>90%) reported persistently positive attitudes regarding physicians in recovery, societal contributions of patients with SUDs; ability to learn from such patients; and general attitudes toward SUD treatment. This skewed distribution precluded the investigation of subgroup differences. Fewer students reported persistently positive attitudes regarding SUD patients' healthcare utilization (alcohol 58.5%; drug 57.8%) and impact on other patients' care (alcohol 73.7%; drug 72.4%), compared to other attitudinal domains (at p-values < 0.0001 in the McNemar's tests). Approximately, 1 in 5 students reported more negative healthcare utilization attitudes on follow-up. There were no demographic differences in these two attitudinal domains.

CONCLUSION

Unlike previous studies of medical student attitudes, most students who participated in the Enhanced Pre-Clinical SBIRT Curriculum reported an enduring appreciation for the educational and societal contributions of patients with SUDs. Attitudes toward healthcare utilization and the impact of patients with SUDs on the care of other patients were more resistant to change, possibly due to the predominance of acute-care inpatient settings in clinical training.