Collection II. Episode 9. "Integrating Disability Into Health Sciences Curricula: Implementation, Recommendations, and the Need for Disability Content in Health Sciences Education."

In Research and Resource Rounds Episode 9, we review Improvements in Students' Attitudes Toward People With Disabilities With or Without Semi-Structured Community-Based Interactions.  The article describes and presents the results of a study in which the three authors tested the effect of a baseline curriculum and of an enhanced curriculum on doctor of physical therapy students' attitudes towards people with disabilities. Two student cohorts from the University of Texas El Paso's doctor of physical therapy program participated in the study which measured attitudes using two common measures: first, Attitudes Toward Disabled People or ATDP-A and the Multidimensional Attitudes Scale Toward Persons with Disabilities or MAS. The baseline curriculum group and enhanced curriculum group both showed improvement in their attitudes, although the baseline group only showed a statistically significant improvement in attitudes towards people with disabilities on the MAS scale. Moreover, the two groups (baseline and enhanced curriculum) did not differ significantly on their pretest or posttest scores on either attitude measure. Article: Improvements in Students' Attitudes Toward People With Disabilities With or Without Semi-Structured Community-Based Interactions. Authors: Jimenez, Pechak, Garrand DOI: https://doi.org/10.1097/JTE.0000000000000102 Transcript Keywords: Physical Therapy Doctor of Physical Therapy Physical Therapy Education Physical Therapy Curricula Interdisciplinary health education Healthcare training Medical training Care work Chronic Illness Disability terminology Disability studies Social model Medical model Health Sciences Medical Education