(001) 2022 Stoudemire Award: Effectiveness of the NCRP Fellowship Collaborative Didactic Series

‎2022 Stoudemire Innovations in Education Award Winner

Overview: The National Curriculum in Reproductive Psychiatry (NCRP) is an evidence-based peer-‎reviewed curriculum designed to be flexibly implemented within psychiatry residency training ‎programs. While there are over 70 hours of training materials available within the NCRP, most ‎psychiatry residency programs devote less than 10 hours of instruction on reproductive psychiatry ‎topics within 4 years of training. Thus, in depth training within consult liaison (CL) and reproductive ‎psychiatry fellowships is a critical need. The NCRP Fellowship Collaborative Didactic Series is an ‎innovative adaptation of the NCRP for trainees in CL or reproductive psychiatry fellowships across the ‎United States. The primary goals of this series are to: 1) provide a comprehensive and advanced ‎curriculum in reproductive psychiatry using the NCRP; and 2) build a community of learning and ‎mentorship to foster continued growth of this field.‎

Methods: Twenty-six fellows from 15 institutions participating in either CL (N=15) or reproductive ‎psychiatry (N=11) training programs were organized into two separate cohorts and participated in ‎weekly meetings via Zoom technology from August 2021 thru May 2022. Each cohort had a “core” ‎faculty member, with individual sessions taught by fellowship and/or NCRP faculty across the country. ‎To address both of our primary goals, the curriculum utilized NCRP materials to cover all core ‎knowledge areas of reproductive psychiatry in addition to a “meet the experts” series, in which ‎leaders in the field met with each cohort to discuss sentinel articles, current cases, and/or career ‎planning. Fellows completed 29 multiple-choice NCRP content questions prior to and at completion of ‎the course series to assess changes in knowledge, as well as a 6-question Likert style post-course ‎survey to measure the utility of the program (e.g. ease of attendance, overall experience, ‎opportunities for mentoring and community building). Statistical analyses included paired student’s t-‎tests for changes in content scores and chi-square analyses.‎

Results: Among the twenty-two fellows to complete both pre and post-tests, there was a significant ‎improvement in knowledge base (3.72-point increase on the knowledge test (p < 0.001)) and ‎preparedness to treat perinatal women with mental illness (p < 0.001). Most fellows felt the NCRP ‎lectures were easy to attend (67%), improved their fellowship experience (100%), provided a deeper ‎knowledge base than that of requisite training (86%), provided a fellows community (71%), fostered ‎mentorship (76%), and impacted their career trajectory (76%).‎

Conclusions: The NCRP fellowship collaborative didactic series is effective at improving content ‎knowledge in reproductive psychiatry and enhances fellowship training by providing deeper ‎reproductive psychiatry training and fostering community and mentorship opportunities.‎