Medical Training About AA Works

Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 8:53 am

Teaching internal medicine resident physicians about alcoholics anonymous: a pilot study of an educational intervention.

Greater physician confidence in treating alcoholism is associated with a higher frequency of referring alcoholic patients for treatment, but many physicians have limited experience with Alcoholics Anonymous.

We implemented a brief, didactic and experiential educational intervention about AA and evaluated its effect on knowledge and attitudes, using a before-after repeated measures study design.

Thirty-six first-year internal medicine resident physicians received an educational intervention, which consisted of a 45-minute lecture about AA, a visit to an AA meeting, and a 30-minute debriefing session the next day.

Residents’ knowledge and attitudes were assessed by a brief written anonymous survey before and after the educational intervention.

Residents reported increases in self-perceived knowledge about AA and had more favorable attitudes towards AA after the intervention.

Our pilot study shows that a brief, didactic and experiential course can improve physician knowledge and attitudes about AA, and holds promise for improving physician interface with this commonly used intervention.

Rose AJ, Stein MR, Arnsten JH, Saitz R. Teaching internal medicine resident physicians about alcoholics anonymous: a pilot study of an educational intervention. Subst Abus. 2006 Sep;27(3):5-11.