Parent-provider paediatric literacy communication: A curriculum for future primary care providers

Abstract

Background Reach Out and Read promotes early literacy and school readiness by incorporating book delivery and anticipatory guidance into well-child visits. There is a need to train future healthcare providers in the knowledge and skills to communicate with parents/caregivers about early childhood literacy. We developed and evaluated a curriculum to improve learners’ knowledge, attitudes, and skills towards the incorporation of parent-provider literacy communication into well-child visits. Methods Family medicine residents ( n = 30), physician assistant students ( n = 36), and medical students ( n = 28) participated in a curriculum consisting of service learning, online didactic training, objective structured clinical exams (OSCEs) and a debriefing session. Standardized patients (SPs; 6 months to 5 years) and standardized patient caregivers were recruited and trained. Learners were evaluated on their abilities to offer books to patients, provide anticipatory guidance, and demonstrate parent-provider communication skills. Knowledge, attitudes, and satisfaction were collected pre- and post-curriculum. Results Significant increases in total knowledge were observed after completing curriculum activities ( p < 0.001). All attitudes improved after training ( p < 0.05). All learners (100%) recommended that caregivers talk back and forth with their 6‑ to 12-month-old babies and make eye contact. Few (18.2%) learners recommended playing games like ‘peek-a-boo’ while reading. When caregivers evaluated learners’ basic parent-provider communication skills, all reported that the learners treated them with respect and used plain language. Discussion Our curriculum extends beyond previous studies by measuring recommended books, anticipatory guidance, and communication skills using paediatric SPs and standardized patient caregivers. Curriculum activities can be tailored to best promote parent-provider literacy communication training in other programs. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s40037-019-0503-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Technology-delivered undergraduate medical education involving patients and carers: A rapid systematic review

“…Four studies involved remote consultation technology for student involvement in clinical consultations using telehealth platforms, video-conferencing software, and telephone [32–35]. Three studies used online technology, including an online medical e-forum where registered patients submitted questions [36], an online interactive patient simulation tool [37], and online didactic training [38]. One study compared the educational benefits of a video-lecture (the technology arm) to the use of “simulated” patients, where it is unclear what type of technology was used to simulate patients [39].…”

“…Two of the final 20 studies described using “simulated” or “virtual” patients, [39–40] but did not clarify what these terms meant. Two studies described patient-focused videos [26, 38], however a lack of description inhibited establishing whether patients were authentic. The remaining sixteen studies involved authentic patients [22-25, 27-37, 41].…”

“…The remaining studies involved patients in the development of materials that featured later in medical teaching (via technology). Two studies included the perspective of family members, one involved authentic family members [30] and one did not provide enough detail to determine if caregivers were authentic [38].…”

“…In the majority of cases, students viewed a pre-recorded video or completed online material that involved no real-time encounters with patients. These fourteen studies described patient and carer involvement categorised at Level 1 of Towle and colleagues’ [5] taxonomy [22-31, 36-38, 41]. Six studies involved patients in real-time clinical or educational encounters led or observed by students [32-35, 39-40], reflecting Level 2 of Towle et al’s taxonomy, although in two of these studies the authenticity of the patients is unclear [39–40].…”

“…The MMAT score distribution for the included studies were summarised as follows: low quality n=3 papers [29, 34, 37], moderate quality n=2 [22, 41] and high quality n=15 papers [23-28, 30-32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40]. The two mixed-methods studies scored 5/5 and 3/5 respectively in the quality criteria for their qualitative and quantitative components respectively [28, 33].…”