Cargando…

Knowledge and attitudes of U.S. medical students regarding the care of Asian American patients: a cross-sectional survey study

BACKGROUND: Asian Americans (AsAm) are a rapidly growing population in the U.S. With this growing population, U.S. healthcare providers must be equipped to provide culturally competent care for AsAm patients. This project surveyed U.S. medical students on their knowledge of and attitudes towards AsA...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Pang, Sharon, Vongsachang, Hursuong, Le, Thomas K., Zhang, George Q., Li, Taibo, Lee, Jason T. C., Lawson, Shari M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7937206/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33676520
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-02568-0
_version_ 1783661340989063168
author Pang, Sharon
Vongsachang, Hursuong
Le, Thomas K.
Zhang, George Q.
Li, Taibo
Lee, Jason T. C.
Lawson, Shari M.
author_facet Pang, Sharon
Vongsachang, Hursuong
Le, Thomas K.
Zhang, George Q.
Li, Taibo
Lee, Jason T. C.
Lawson, Shari M.
author_sort Pang, Sharon
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Asian Americans (AsAm) are a rapidly growing population in the U.S. With this growing population, U.S. healthcare providers must be equipped to provide culturally competent care for AsAm patients. This project surveyed U.S. medical students on their knowledge of and attitudes towards AsAm to assess predictors of readiness to care for AsAm patients. METHOD: This cross-sectional study surveyed medical students who had completed at least one clinical rotation. The survey was distributed online to nine medical schools throughout the U.S. The survey measured self-rated knowledge of, comfort with, cultural competency (CC) towards, and explicit biases towards AsAm patients. The first three domains were analyzed in a multivariate regression model including sociodemographic characteristics and past clinical, curricular, and social experiences with AsAm. Explicit bias questions were reported descriptively. RESULTS: There were 688 respondents. Asian race, AsAm-prevalent hometown, AsAm-related extracurricular activities, Asian language knowledge, and having taken a population health course predicted increased AsAm knowledge. Social interactions with AsAm increased comfort with AsAm patients. Increasing year in medical school, more frequent exposure to AsAm patients on rotations, and prior travel to an Asian country were predictors of increased CC toward AsAm. Importantly, having completed a CC course was a significant predictor in all domains. In terms of explicit bias, students felt that AsAm patients were more compliant than Caucasian patients. Students also believed that Caucasian patients were generally more likely to receive self-perceived “preferred” versus “acceptable” care, but that in their own clinical experiences neither group received preferred care. CONCLUSION: Experience with and exposure to AsAm prior to and during medical school and CC courses may increase medical student knowledge, comfort, and CC with AsAm patients. Standardized and longitudinal CC training, increased simulations with AsAm patients, diverse student recruitment, and support for students to engage in AsAm-related activities and interact with AsAm may improve CC of future physicians towards AsAm patients and possibly other minority populations. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-021-02568-0.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7937206
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-79372062021-03-09 Knowledge and attitudes of U.S. medical students regarding the care of Asian American patients: a cross-sectional survey study Pang, Sharon Vongsachang, Hursuong Le, Thomas K. Zhang, George Q. Li, Taibo Lee, Jason T. C. Lawson, Shari M. BMC Med Educ Research Article BACKGROUND: Asian Americans (AsAm) are a rapidly growing population in the U.S. With this growing population, U.S. healthcare providers must be equipped to provide culturally competent care for AsAm patients. This project surveyed U.S. medical students on their knowledge of and attitudes towards AsAm to assess predictors of readiness to care for AsAm patients. METHOD: This cross-sectional study surveyed medical students who had completed at least one clinical rotation. The survey was distributed online to nine medical schools throughout the U.S. The survey measured self-rated knowledge of, comfort with, cultural competency (CC) towards, and explicit biases towards AsAm patients. The first three domains were analyzed in a multivariate regression model including sociodemographic characteristics and past clinical, curricular, and social experiences with AsAm. Explicit bias questions were reported descriptively. RESULTS: There were 688 respondents. Asian race, AsAm-prevalent hometown, AsAm-related extracurricular activities, Asian language knowledge, and having taken a population health course predicted increased AsAm knowledge. Social interactions with AsAm increased comfort with AsAm patients. Increasing year in medical school, more frequent exposure to AsAm patients on rotations, and prior travel to an Asian country were predictors of increased CC toward AsAm. Importantly, having completed a CC course was a significant predictor in all domains. In terms of explicit bias, students felt that AsAm patients were more compliant than Caucasian patients. Students also believed that Caucasian patients were generally more likely to receive self-perceived “preferred” versus “acceptable” care, but that in their own clinical experiences neither group received preferred care. CONCLUSION: Experience with and exposure to AsAm prior to and during medical school and CC courses may increase medical student knowledge, comfort, and CC with AsAm patients. Standardized and longitudinal CC training, increased simulations with AsAm patients, diverse student recruitment, and support for students to engage in AsAm-related activities and interact with AsAm may improve CC of future physicians towards AsAm patients and possibly other minority populations. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-021-02568-0. BioMed Central 2021-03-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7937206/ /pubmed/33676520 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-02568-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Pang, Sharon
Vongsachang, Hursuong
Le, Thomas K.
Zhang, George Q.
Li, Taibo
Lee, Jason T. C.
Lawson, Shari M.
Knowledge and attitudes of U.S. medical students regarding the care of Asian American patients: a cross-sectional survey study
title Knowledge and attitudes of U.S. medical students regarding the care of Asian American patients: a cross-sectional survey study
title_full Knowledge and attitudes of U.S. medical students regarding the care of Asian American patients: a cross-sectional survey study
title_fullStr Knowledge and attitudes of U.S. medical students regarding the care of Asian American patients: a cross-sectional survey study
title_full_unstemmed Knowledge and attitudes of U.S. medical students regarding the care of Asian American patients: a cross-sectional survey study
title_short Knowledge and attitudes of U.S. medical students regarding the care of Asian American patients: a cross-sectional survey study
title_sort knowledge and attitudes of u.s. medical students regarding the care of asian american patients: a cross-sectional survey study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7937206/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33676520
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-02568-0
work_keys_str_mv AT pangsharon knowledgeandattitudesofusmedicalstudentsregardingthecareofasianamericanpatientsacrosssectionalsurveystudy
AT vongsachanghursuong knowledgeandattitudesofusmedicalstudentsregardingthecareofasianamericanpatientsacrosssectionalsurveystudy
AT lethomask knowledgeandattitudesofusmedicalstudentsregardingthecareofasianamericanpatientsacrosssectionalsurveystudy
AT zhanggeorgeq knowledgeandattitudesofusmedicalstudentsregardingthecareofasianamericanpatientsacrosssectionalsurveystudy
AT litaibo knowledgeandattitudesofusmedicalstudentsregardingthecareofasianamericanpatientsacrosssectionalsurveystudy
AT leejasontc knowledgeandattitudesofusmedicalstudentsregardingthecareofasianamericanpatientsacrosssectionalsurveystudy
AT lawsonsharim knowledgeandattitudesofusmedicalstudentsregardingthecareofasianamericanpatientsacrosssectionalsurveystudy