Online learning interventions and small group debriefings can improve medical residents’ attitudes and communication skills toward patients with substance use disorders, and may result in improved care for these patients, according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University College of Medicine published online in Academic Medicine.

The study used a novel internet-based learning module designed to improve the communication skills of primary care physicians during screenings and brief counseling sessions with patients with substance use disorders. The study was co-led by Paul N. Lanken, MD, associate dean for Professionalism and Humanism and professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Penn, and Barbara A. Schindler, MD, vice dean emerita, Educational and Academic Affairs, and professor of Psychiatry at Drexel.

“The study findings with residents are promising because we saw that a relatively brief intervention yielded big changes in their attitudes and communication skills,” said Lanken. “Based on these results, we would expect improved medical care of patients with substance use disorders, but further studies are needed to look at practice-based and patient-centered outcomes in connection with this type of educational intervention.”

Substance use disorders have led to an epidemic of morbidity and mortality, and more than an estimated 100,000 deaths and $400 billion in health and social costs per year in the United States have been directly attributed to the use of drugs and alcohol, according to the study. While health care providers are adequately prepared to diagnose and treat the medical consequences of substance use disorders, they are far less likely to screen for and treat the disorders themselves. However, this study asserts that primary care physicians can play a key role in both prevention and intervention.

Previous studies of educational interventions have shown improvement in screening and counseling patients with substance use disorders, however, these approaches haven’t been widely adopted, likely due to time constraints of current curricula. The authors suggest that internet-based learning has the potential to reach large numbers of learners with both fewer logistical barriers than other educational formats and comparable or superior effectiveness and efficiency.

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