title: Effects of geriatric clinical skills training on the attitudes of medical students.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Physicians' attitudes, knowledge and skills are powerful determinants of quality of care for older patients. Previous studies found that using educational interventions to improve attitude is a difficult task. No previous study sought to determine if a skills-oriented educational intervention improved student attitudes towards elderly patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study evaluated the effect of a geriatric clinical skills training (CST) on attitudes of University of Bern medical students in their first year of clinical training. The geriatric CST consisted of four 2.5-hour teaching sessions that covered central domains of geriatric assessment (e.g., cognition, mobility), and a textbook used by students to self-prepare. Students' attitudes were the primary outcome, and were assessed with the 14-item University of California at Los Angeles Geriatrics Attitudes Scale (UCLA-GAS) in a quasi-randomized fashion, either before or after geriatric CST.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 154 medical students participated. Students evaluated before the CST had a median UCLA-GAS overall scale of 49 (interquartile range 44-53). After the CST, the scores increased slightly, to 51 (interquartile range 47-54; median difference 2, 95% confidence interval 0-4, P = 0.062). Of the four validated UCLA-GAS subscales, only the resource distribution subscale was significantly higher in students evaluated after the geriatric CST (median difference 1, 95% confidence interval 0-2, P = 0.005).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Teaching that targets specific skills may improve the attitudes of medical students towards elderly patients, though the improvement was slight. The addition of attitude-building elements may improve the effectiveness of future skills-oriented educational interventions.
authors.forename: Adrian O
authors.initials: AO
authors.lastname: Goeldlin
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Siegenthaler
authors.forename: André
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Moser
authors.forename: Yvette D
authors.initials: YD
authors.lastname: Stoeckli
authors.forename: Andreas E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Stuck
authors.affiliation: Division of Geriatrics, Department of General Internal Medicine, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, and University of Bern, CH-3010 Bern, Switzerland. Andreas.Schoenenberger@insel.ch.
authors.forename: Andreas W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Schoenenberger
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003479:Curriculum; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005260:Female; D005853:Geriatrics / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013557:Switzerland; D055815:Young Adult