Jones HE, Manze M, Brakman A, Kwan A, Davies M, Romero D. Physician engagement in reproductive health advocacy: findings from a mixed methods evaluation of a leadership and advocacy program.
BMC MEDICAL EDUCATION 2024;
24:476. [PMID:
38689263 PMCID:
PMC11061897 DOI:
10.1186/s12909-024-05410-5]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/23/2024] [Accepted: 04/09/2024] [Indexed: 05/02/2024]
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Medical curricula include advocacy competencies, but how much physicians engage in advocacy and what enables this engagement is not well characterized. The authors assessed facilitators and barriers to advocacy identified by physician alumni of a reproductive health advocacy training program.
METHODS
The authors present secondary results from a mixed methods program evaluation from 2018 to 2020, using alumni data from a cross-sectional survey (n = 231) and in-depth interviews (IDIs, n = 36). The survey measured engagement in policy, media, professional organization, and medical education advocacy and the value placed on the community fostered by the program (eight questions, Cronbach's alpha = 0.81). The authors estimated the association of community value score with advocacy engagement using multivariable Poisson regression to estimate prevalence ratios and analyzed IDI data inductively.
RESULTS
Over one third of alumni were highly engaged in legislative policy (n = 90, 39%), professional organizations (n = 98, 42%), or medical education (n = 89, 39%), with fewer highly active in media-based advocacy (n = 54, 23%) in the year prior to the survey. Survey and IDI data demonstrated that passion, sense of urgency, confidence in skills, and the program's emphasis on different forms of advocacy facilitated engagement in advocacy, while insufficient time, safety concerns, and sense of effort redundancies were barriers. The program community was also an important facilitator, especially for "out loud" efforts and for those working in environments perceived as hostile to abortion care (e.g., alumni in hostile environments with high community value scores were 1.8 times [95% CI 1.3, 2.6] as likely to report medium/high levels of media advocacy compared to those with low scores after adjusting for age, gender, and clinical specialty).
CONCLUSION
Physician advocacy training curricula should include both skills- and community-building and identify a full range of forms of advocacy. Community-building is especially important for physician advocacy for reproductive health services such as abortion care.
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