Medical student program to learn from families experiencing developmental disabilities

Measuring Health Professionals' Skills and Self-Efficacy for Communicating with Individuals with Disabilities: Instrument Development and Validation

Individuals with disabilities experience numerous health disparities compared to their non-disabled peers and face inequities associated with challenges accessing care, stigma, and bias. Health professionals have the opportunity to address health inequities through improved communication, a primary barrier to receiving quality care; however more training is needed. There are limitations to existing tools to measure the skills or self-efficacy of professionals to communicate with individuals with disabilities, and to assess the effectiveness of training programs. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an instrument to measure health professionals' communication skills and self-efficacy specifically related to working with individuals with disabilities. After a comprehensive review of literature, expert review of proposed scale items, and pilot test, a 19-item survey was administered to 237 healthcare and health and physical education professionals. Construct validity was evaluated by performing an exploratory factor analysis on each subscale and Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to measure internal consistency. For the skills subscale, Cronbach's α = .919 and for the self-efficacy subscale Cronbach's α = .949 after the removal of one item, resulting in a final 18-item inventory that demonstrates strong validity and reliability.

A systematic review of intellectual and developmental disability curriculum in international pre-graduate health professional education

BACKGROUND

Despite the increasing global population of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), this population remains especially vulnerable to health disparities through several factors such as a lack of access to sufficient medical care and poor determinants of health. To add, numerous studies have shown that healthcare professionals are still insufficiently prepared to support this population of patients. This review synthesizes the literature on current pre-graduate IDD training programs across healthcare professions with the goal of informing the creation of evidence-based curricula.

METHODS

Four major databases were searched for current pre-graduate IDD training interventions for healthcare professionals. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis flow diagram and the Best Evidence Medical Educations systematic review guide were used to frame our collection and analysis.

RESULTS

Of the 8601 studies screened, 32 studies were identified, with most studies involving medical students (50%). Of note, 35% of studies were interprofessional. Most interventions utilized multiple pedagogical methods with a majority including clinical experiences (63%) followed by theoretical teaching (59%). Kirkpatrick levels showed 9% were level 0, 6% were level 1, 31% were level 2A, 31% were level 2B, 19% were level 3, 3% were level 4A, and none were level 4B.

CONCLUSIONS

There is a paucity of formally evaluated studies in pre-graduate health professional IDD education. As well, there are a lack of longitudinal learning opportunities and integration into formal curriculum. Strengths identified were the use of multimodal approaches to teaching, including interprofessional approaches to optimize team competencies.