Expanding Medical Education to Include Substance Use Disorders During Pregnancy and Postpartum: Preliminary Effectiveness of a Pilot Curriculum for Medical Students.

OBJECTIVE

To effectively combat the simultaneous overdose and maternal mortality crises, a multimodal approach is needed. The aim of this study is to evaluate the preliminary effectiveness of a pilot, experiential learning, substance use disorder (SUD) curriculum embedded into a third-year medical student obstetrics and gynecology clerkship to improve self-reported confidence in SUD clinical skills.

METHODS

This SUD curriculum was designed and implemented in an outpatient clinic, which provides integrated obstetric, gynecologic, and addiction medicine services for pregnant and parenting people with SUD. Third-year medical students on their obstetrics and gynecology clerkship rotated 1 full day through the OB MOTIVATE clinic between August 2020 and April 2022 and completed this curriculum. Students completed preclinic assignments and in-clinic tasks (eg, practicing SBIRT under supervision: screening, brief intervention, referral to treatment). Paired t tests assessed changes in outcomes, with increasing scores (range 1-5) demonstrating improvement.

RESULTS

Sixty-three students rotated through the OB MOTIVATE clinic; 57 completed the curriculum and surveys. Results from the self-assessment tools demonstrated significant improvements in confidence in SUD clinical skills, including performing SBIRT (2.46 ± 0.80 vs 4.07 ± 0.59, P < 0.01), motivational interviewing (2.98 ± 0.86 vs 4.16 ± 0.65, P < 0.01), using evidence-based medicine (2.91 ± 1.09 vs 4.23 ± 0.66, P < 0.01), and collecting an SUD history (3.25 ± 1.04 vs 4.35 ± 0.55, P = 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS

The integration of interventional curriculums into medical school and residency programs could be an effective avenue to reinforce addiction knowledge and teach new skills. This practical 1-day pilot curriculum demonstrated preliminary effectiveness at introducing third-year medical students to the complexities of SUD in pregnancy and postpartum. Further investigations of feasible and acceptable SUD educational interventions are warranted.