Presenting Author:

Abhisek Khandai, M.D.

Principal Investigator:

Robert Lloyd, M.D.

Department:

Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Keywords:

psychiatry, mental health, residents, psychoeducation, psychiatric topics of care, needs assessment, cross-sectional sur... [Read full text] psychiatry, mental health, residents, psychoeducation, psychiatric topics of care, needs assessment, cross-sectional survey, comfort, educational interest, gender, department, level of postgraduate training, internal medicine, emergency medicine, surgery, OB-GYN, neurology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, Northwestern, decision-making capacity, agitation, delirium, depression, alcohol withdrawal [Shorten text]

Location:

Third Floor, Feinberg Pavilion, Northwestern Memorial Hospital

E27 - Education Women's Health Research

Psychoeducation of Non-Psychiatric Residents: Comfort Level vs Educational Interest

Introduction: Resident physicians outside of psychiatry receive 1-2 months of psychiatry training during medical school, yet are expected to manage patients with psychiatric co-morbidity for the rest of their careers. However, while non-psychiatric residents reportedly have low comfort with patients with psychiatric illness, research on non-psychiatrist comfort levels with psychiatric topics remains sparse. We aim to systematically assess both comfort level and self-identified educational needs across multiple specialties to identify opportunities for targeted educational intervention. Methods: A nine-item, anonymous cross-sectional survey was electronically sent to all residents in internal medicine (n=112), emergency medicine (n=56), general surgery (n=35), obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN, n=64), neurology (n=21), and physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R, n=41) at Northwestern McGaw Medical Center. Demographic data was collected on gender, department, level of postgraduate training, and weeks of psychiatry clerkship in medical school. Qualitative (free response) and quantitative (Likert scale) data was collected on comfort with psychiatric topics in patient care for which psychiatry is commonly consulted, as well as interest in further education on these topics. Average comfort and interest levels were compared between specialties, genders, levels of postgraduate training, and weeks of psychiatry clerkship using ANOVA for an unbalanced design with a Tukey adjustment. Results: 155 residents responded in total. Specialties were significantly different from each other on both level of comfort with and educational interest in most topics of psychiatric care. Discomfort with topics was not consistently related to interest in further education. Comfort and educational interest was not significantly related to weeks of medical school psychiatry clerkship. Similarly, postgraduate training level did not affect either comfort or educational interest on psychiatric topics, with the exception of agitation which significantly increased between PGY1 and PGY4. Gender was significantly associated with increased comfort on alcohol withdrawal (male) and depression (female), as well as educational interest in agitation, anxiety, and conversion/functional disorders (female). Discussion: Assumptions that comfort levels with psychiatric topics would correlate with educational interest were not supported by this study. In addition, increased residency training and weeks of medical school psychiatry clerkship did not lead to increased comfort or decreased educational interest in psychiatric topics. Specialty-specific patterns of low comfort and high interest- e.g. OB/GYN and delirium- create opportunities for targeted educational intervention. In addition, areas of both low comfort and low interest, e.g. surgery and depression, reveal areas for further advocacy in our psychiatrically co-morbid patients.