The Association of Clinician Characteristics with their Attitudes Toward Patients with Sickle Cell Disease: Secondary Analyses of a Randomized Controlled Trial.
BACKGROUND
A high level of evidence exists to suggest that negative attitudes held by clinicians toward persons with sickle cell disease serve as important barriers to the delivery of high quality care to this patient population. Little is known, though, about the characteristics of clinicians that may be predictive of these negative attitudes.


METHODS
During spring and summer 2009, we conducted a randomized controlled trial to test an intervention to improve clinician attitudes toward persons with sickle cell disease. Participating clinicians completed questionnaires regarding their demographic characteristics and their attitudes toward sickle cell patients. Principal clinician characteristics of interest included their race, professional discipline (nurse/physician), and the amount of their recent exposure to sickle cell patients in pain. Secondary analyses from this trial are presented here.


RESULTS
Asian clinicians reported more negative attitudes towards these patients than did Black or White clinicians, nurses reported more negative attitudes than physicians, and clinicians with the greatest levels of recent exposure to sickle cell patients in pain reported more negative attitudes than did clinicians with lower levels of recent exposure.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings could facilitate the development of tailored educational resources needed to improve the quality of care delivered to persons with sickle cell disease, a national priority for sickle cell efforts.
The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. Electronic address: chaywoodjY@ihu.edu.
Carlton
C
Haywood
The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Sophie
S
Lanzkron
The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.
Mark
M
Hughes
The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Rochelle
R
Brown
Section of General Internal Medicine, Oregon Health and Science University, Division of General Internal Medicine & Geriatrics.
Somnath
S
Saha
The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.
Mary Catherine
MC
Beach
Sickle cell disease; clinician attitudes; healthcare disparities