Background: Neurophobia is a chronic disease of medical students and junior doctors.Early detection is needed to facilitate prevention and management as this fear can negatively impact patient care.
Methods: We conducted a two-part mono-centric study at the faculty of Medicine, Sorbonne University, in Paris. Part one: a cross-sectional study to validate a newly constructed neurophobia scale, NeuroQ. Part two: a prospective longitudinal study to assess the impact of The Move on student neurophobia using NeuroQ. A populationbased sample of second-year medical students of the 2019 and 2020 class of the Faculty of Medicine of Sorbonne University were invited to participate. Results: NeuroQ incorporates the main themes of the neurophobia definition and demonstrates uni-dimensionality. Three hundred and ninety-five medical students participated in the study (mean age was 20.0 years, SD: 2.1 years) assessing the effect of The Move teaching on neurophobia. Two hundred and eighty-eight (72.9%) students were female. After the Move teaching the mean NeuroQ score was significantly lower compared to the baseline NeuroQ score (mean [SD] variation, -1.1 [2.6], p < 0.001).There was a 22.3% relative reduction in the number of neurophobic students after The Move teaching.