PREVENTION TRAINING AND MEDICAL RESIDENCY

We developed a questionnaire to assess training and perceived competen ce in prevention skills during medical residency. We asked residents a t a university training program about 20 prevention interventions reco mmended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Primary care and c ategorical medicine residents rated the adequacy of training and the p erceived relevance to clinical practice of these interventions as well as basic skill and knowledge areas (such as patient education) on fiv e-point Likert-type scales (1 = very inadequate or very unimportant an d 5 = very adequate or very important). Fifty-eight residents (n = 19 primary care and 39 categorical medicine) completed the questionnaire (response rate = 63%). Primary care residents felt significantly (P < .05) more competent than categorical medicine residents in 14 of the 2 0 prevention interventions. Primary care residents rated the adequacy of training in eight of 10 basic skill and knowledge areas significant ly (P < .05) higher than did categorical medicine residents. For both groups of residents, mean relevance scores significantly exceeded mean perceived competence scores in 18 of 20 prevention interventions and in all 10 skill and knowledge areas. Primary care residents felt more competent than categorical medicine residents in performing most preve ntion interventions However, residents in both training programs rate the relevance of several basic skill and knowledge areas as higher tha n their perceived competence, suggesting training underemphasis. Both primary care and categorical medicine training programs could use this instrument to assess the adequacy of their training in these areas.