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Medical student attitudes and concepts of frailty and delirium

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Abstract

Background

Frailty and delirium are important conditions in an ageing population, but there is little evidence exploring medical students’ conceptualisation of, or attitudes towards these subjects. We investigated how students’ concepts of frailty and delirium changed following a new geriatric medicine module at Manchester medical school.

Materials and methods

Semi-structured interviews were used with students before and after the new teaching week to explore changes in attitude towards frailty and delirium and their conceptualisation. Final year students who had not completed the module were interviewed as a comparison group. Grounded theory and content clouds were employed for data analysis.

Results

Ten 4th year and 11 final year students were interviewed. After the teaching week, 4th year students had a richer conceptualisation of frailty and delirium. Students described structured assessments such as comprehensive geriatric assessment and expressed confidence in their use. Their frameworks were more developed than the final year students who had not had such teaching. Attitudes towards older people, frailty, delirium, and the specialty of geriatric medicine improved following the teaching week.

Conclusion

This study shows that geriatric medicine teaching improves students’ conceptualisation of frailty and delirium and their understanding of the importance of structured assessments and management plans.

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Abbreviations

CAM:

Confusion assessment method

CGA:

Comprehensive geriatric assessment

GT:

Grounded theory

P:

Participant

Y4:

Year 4

Y5:

Year 5

Y4-Pre:

Year 4 participant interview before the teaching week

Y4-Post:

Year 4 participant interview after the teaching week

Y5-Pre:

Year 5 participant interview before the teaching week

Y5-Post:

Year 5 participant interview after the teaching week

4AT:

Rapid assessment test for delirium

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Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, Rochdale Old Road, Bury, BL9 7TD, UK

    Danielle Nimmons

  2. University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PT, UK

    T. Pattison & P. O’Neill

  3. Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, Stott Lane, Salford, M6 8HD, UK

    T. Pattison

  4. University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust, Southmoor Road, Manchester, M23 9LT, UK

    P. O’Neill

Authors
  1. Danielle Nimmons
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  2. T. Pattison
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  3. P. O’Neill
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Contributions

DN: conception and design; data acquisition, analysis and interpretation; drafting and revision of manuscript. TP: conception and design; analysis and interpretation; drafting and revision of manuscript. PON: conception and design; analysis and interpretation; drafting and revision of manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Danielle Nimmons.

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Conflict of interest

We have nothing to report.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval was obtained from the University of Manchester research ethical committee (ref 14434).

Informed consent

Written consent was obtained before the interviews.

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Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 70 kb)

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Nimmons, D., Pattison, T. & O’Neill, P. Medical student attitudes and concepts of frailty and delirium. Eur Geriatr Med 9, 45–50 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41999-017-0018-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41999-017-0018-y

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