Piloting a Coping Skills Group Intervention to Reduce Depression and Anxiety Symptoms in Patients Awaiting Kidney or Liver Transplant.

The authors evaluated the use of a coping skills group (CSG) therapy intervention to decrease depression and anxiety and increase healthy coping skills in a population of kidney and liver transplant candidates. The study, using a pre-posttest design, piloted a CSG with a convenience sample of 41 consenting participants on a waiting list or in workup for kidney or liver transplant. Two transplant social workers led five eight-week closed psychoeducational groups. Coping skills, depression symptoms, and anxiety symptoms were assessed preintervention, postintervention, and at follow-up one month later. Results suggest that the CSG group created significant changes in some coping areas, such as decreasing the use of denial and self-blame and increasing the use of acceptance, religion, and instrumental supports. In this study, instrumental supports are strategies such as seeking assistance, finding information, or asking for advice about what to do. The effects on instrumental supports did not sustain at the one-month follow-up. Anxiety and depression scores were significantly reduced, and these changes were sustained at one-month follow-up. This study supports the use of a group-based psychosocial intervention for the pretransplant population and will be most relevant to social workers practicing in the transplant field.

Reducing the stigma of mental illness in undergraduate medical education: a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: The stigma of mental illness among medical students is a prevalent concern that has far reaching negative consequences. Attempts to combat this stigma through educational initiatives have had mixed results. This study examined the impact of a one-time contact-based educational intervention on the stigma of mental illness among medical students and compared this with a multimodal undergraduate psychiatry course at the University of Calgary, Canada that integrates contact-based educational strategies. Attitudes towards mental illness were compared with those towards type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). METHOD: A cluster-randomized trial design was used to evaluate the impact of contact-based educational interventions delivered at two points in time. The impact was assessed by collecting data at 4 time points using the Opening Minds Scale for Health Care Providers (OMS-HC) to assess changes in stigma. RESULTS: Baseline surveys were completed by 62% (n=111) of students before the start of the course and post-intervention ratings were available from 90 of these. Stigma scores for both groups were significantly reduced upon course completion (p < 0.0001), but were not significantly changed following the one-time contact based educational intervention in the primary analysis. Student confidence in working with people with a mental illness and interest in a psychiatric career was increased at the end of the course. Stigma towards mental illness remained greater than for T2DM at all time points. CONCLUSIONS: Psychiatric education can decrease the stigma of mental illness and increase student confidence. However, one-time, contact-based educational interventions require further evaluation in this context. The key components are postulated to be contact, knowledge and attention to process, where attending to the student's internal experience of working with people with mental illness is an integral factor in modulating perceptions of mental illness and a psychiatric career.

Podcasting in medical education: can we turn this toy into an effective learning tool?

Advances in information technology have changed how we deliver medical education, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Technologies that were designed for purposes other than education, such as podcasting, are now frequently used in medical education. In this article, the authors discuss the pros and cons of adapting existing technologies for medical education, caution against limiting evaluation of technologies to the level of rater satisfaction, and suggest a research agenda for formally evaluating the role of existing and future technologies in medical education.