P0186 - Specific concussion curriculum: Does it improve resident comfort, knowledge and in-training scores? A pilot study

Title: Specific concussion curriculum: Does it improve residents’ comfort, knowledge and in-training examination scores? A pilot study.

Background: Concussions can cause significant morbidity if not recognized and treated appropriately. Over a span of 8 years (2006-2014) concussion related hospital visits have increased by 54%. It is imperative that Pediatricians have the knowledge and comfort to be able to treat this population.

Method: From February to June 2019 all pediatric residents (24) were required to complete a multimodal concussion curriculum that included: board review style questions, viewing two lectures and working in a concussion clinic. Residents were given a pre-and post-curriculum surveys, which included questions about comfort with diagnosing and treating patients with concussion as well as knowledge-based questions.

Results: Seventeen of 24 residents (70%) completed both the pre- and post-curriculum survey. 88% of residents answered positively on the pre-survey that they wanted more education on concussion management. Residents increased their score on knowledge-based questions an average of 0.64 questions with PGY-1 showing most improvement (fig 1). The proportion of residents who answered the in-training examination (ITE) questions correctly increased from 0.33 to 0.88. The greatest change in resident responding positively for change in self-assessed comfort was seen in anticipatory guidance of symptoms (fig 2). 88% residents rated their self-assessed knowledge about concussions as either unchanged or improved following the curriculum. 47% of residents indicated concussion clinic as the most helpful training tool.

Conclusion: Pediatric residents need more education about concussions, we propose a unique multimodal curriculum to achieve this goal. There was an improvement in self-assessed comfort for diagnosing concussion, giving anticipatory guidance of symptoms and giving guidance for return to play along with an improvement in performance on knowledge-based questions and the ITE; however, this project was limited by sample size. There is an opportunity to implement this curriculum into other types of residency training programs.