Diversity in Reproductive Health and Human Sexuality: Assessing Attitudes Comfort and Knowledge in Learners Before and After Pilot Curriculum.

Abstract

A majority of medical students believe that treating sexual concerns is important for their careers. However, a minority feel that they have received adequate instruction in medical school. This novel supplemental reproductive and sexual health curriculum at a large academic medical center aimed to address this gap and to improve attitudes, comfort, and knowledge about sexual and reproductive health topics among learners. Students participated in a series of sexual and reproductive health workshops taught by interdisciplinary health care workers, with the first cohort in a classroom setting and the second cohort using a virtual format due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We administered a novel pre- and postcourse survey to assess attitudes, comfort, and knowledge about the topics. We performed unpaired 1-tailed t tests and χ2 tests to compare the scores on the pre- and postcourse surveys. Sample size was 12 students for the first cohort and 23 students for the second cohort. Reported levels of comfort with taking sexual histories in different age groups and discussing reproductive and sexual health topics increased significantly: 0.92 for the classroom setting, and 0.50 for the virtual setting, with an average increase of 0.65 points on a 4-point Likert scale. There were no significant changes in student attitudes toward or knowledge of reproductive and sexual health. This course elaborated on topics to which medical students traditionally lack adequate exposure, with significant improvement in comfort counseling patients. A disparity between the classroom and virtual setting suggests limitations of online learning for these topics.