88. STUDYING THE PROGRESSION OF RESIDENTS' CULTURAL ATTITUDES DURING STANDARD PEDIATRIC RESIDENCY

Abstract

Background Developing skills for taking care of patients from a variety of backgrounds is an important aspect in medical education as cultural differences between providers and patients can lead to miscommunication and affect patient outcomes. There is a lack of evidence in the current medical literature on the progression of residents’ cultural attitudes during pediatric residency through clinical experiences alone. The purpose of this study was to perform a cross-sectional survey of pediatric residents at different levels of training in our mid-size residency program. We hypothesized that clinical experiences attained with natural progression through standard pediatric residency training is insufficient to improve the trainees’ cultural attitudes. Methods After obtaining IRB approval, a previously validated Health Belief Attitudes Survey (15 items scored on a 6-point Likert scale) was used to conduct a cross-sectional survey of the cultural attitudes of residents in different levels of training at our pediatric residency program (N=71). Standard descriptive statistics were done. The overall HBAS score was the mean of all 15 questions, Kruskal-Wallis test was used to compare overall median HBAS scores by residency class. Results 60/71 residents (84.5%) completed the survey. 55% reported receiving previous training and most (93.4%) wanted additional training on the topic. Despite that, a majority agreed that they were confident in their ability to deliver culturally effective health care. Residents fared especially poorly in the question on the importance of patient perspective in the physician-patient relationship. No statistically significant differences were seen between the median scores of each PGY class (p=0.65). Conclusions Clinical experiences alone did not lead to a progression of cultural attitudes in our cross-sectional study of pediatric residents in different levels of training. Our study demonstrates a need for developing a cultural sensitivity training curriculum at our residency program and identified specific areas where additional training would be most beneficial.