A prospective controlled trial of the influence of a geriatrics home visit program on medical student knowledge, skills, and attitudes towards care of the elderly

PURPOSE: To determine the impact of a geriatrics home visit program for third-year medical students on attitudes, skills, and knowledge. METHODS: Using a mixed methods, prospective, controlled trial, volunteer control group students (n∈=∈17) at two sites and intervention group students (n∈=∈16) at two different sites within the same internal medicine clerkship were given Internet and CDROM-based geriatric self-study materials. Intervention group students identified a geriatrics patient from their clinical experience, performed one "home" visit (home, nursing home, or rehabilitation facility) to practice geriatric assessment skills, wrote a structured, reflective paper, and presented their findings in small-group teaching settings. Papers were qualitatively analyzed using the constant comparative method for themes. All students took a pre-test and post-test to measure changes in geriatrics knowledge and attitudes. Results: General attitudes towards caring for the elderly improved more in the intervention group than in the control group (9.8 vs 0.5%; p∈=∈0.04, effect size 0.78). Medical student attitudes towards their home care training in medical school (21.7 vs 3.2%; p∈=∈0.02, effect size 0.94) improved, as did attitudes towards time and reimbursement issues surrounding home visits (10.1 vs -0.2%; p∈=∈0.02, effect size 0.89). Knowledge of geriatrics improved in both groups (13.4 vs 15.2% improvement; p∈=∈0.73). Students described performing a mean of seven separate geriatric assessments (range 4-13) during the home visit. Themes that emerged from the qualitative analysis of the reflective papers added depth and understanding to the quantitative data and supported results concerning attitudinal change. Conclusions: While all participants gained geriatrics knowledge during their internal medicine clerkship, students who performed a home visit had improved attitudes towards the elderly and described performing geriatric assessment skills. Requiring little faculty time, a geriatrics home visit program like this one may be a useful clerkship addition to foster medical students' professional growth.