The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of faculty education about sexual harassment on the incidence of sexual harassment experiences among Canadian medical students. The study was designed as a voluntary, anonymous cross-sectional survey at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine. One hundred sixty-eight of 255 fourth-year medical students in February 1991 and 159 of 242 fourth-year medical students in February 1994 participated. The interventions were seminars, workshops, and lectures on sexual harassment for faculty members and students, beginning in the fall of 1991. Our outcome measures were experiences of sexual harassment (noncontact and contact) in 1991 and 1994 for both women and men. The main findings were a decrease in overall sexual harassment from 35.7% (60/168) in 1991 to 22% (35/159) in 1994. Most of this decline was due to a decrease in noncontact sexual harassment from 26.8% (45/168) in 1991 to 13.8% (22/159) in 1994. The number of students who experienced contact sexual harassment remained essentially unchanged, with 15 in 1991 versus 13 in 1994. Significantly more women continued to experience both forms of sexual harassment. Our principal conclusion was that faculty education seems to have led to a decrease in students' experiences of noncontact sexual harassment. However, the stable incidence of contact sexual harassment may indicate a small core of faculty whose behaviors remain unaltered and will require other forms of intervention.
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