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Where Do Health Professions Students Learn About Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV Prevention?

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Abstract

HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is critical for ending the HIV epidemic, and a necessary part of health professions education. We present data from a US survey study (N = 2085) about educational experiences (coursework and extracurricular), in which medical, physician assistant, nursing, and pharmacy students received training about HIV risk factors and PrEP. We found a discrepancy between the percentage of courses covering HIV risk factors (84.7%) compared to PrEP (54.6%) for all students (P < .001), and specifically among final-year students (92.0% vs. 59.7%; P < .001). Pharmacology courses were the most common exposure to PrEP (46.0%), and 61.3% of students were introduced to PrEP through an extracurricular experience. Health professions education must present HIV risk factors in conjunction with PrEP.

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Funding

The authors wish to thank Rosalind Franklin University for their support of this research. No additional funding was received to support this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chicago Medical School, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, 3333 Green Bay Road, North Chicago, 60064, IL, USA

    Samuel R. Bunting

  2. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

    Sarah K. Calabrese

  3. Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, North Chicago, IL, USA

    Sarah S. Garber

  4. Department of Psychology, Saint Xavier University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Timothy D. Ritchie

  5. DeWitt C. Baldwin Institute for Interprofessional Education, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, North Chicago, IL, USA

    Tamzin J. Batteson

Authors
  1. Samuel R. Bunting
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  2. Sarah K. Calabrese
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  3. Sarah S. Garber
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  4. Timothy D. Ritchie
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  5. Tamzin J. Batteson
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Samuel R. Bunting.

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Ethical Approval

This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Rosalind Franklin University.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was received from all participants prior to participation in the study.

Conflict of Interest

SRB, SSG, and TJB have received unrestricted research funding from Gilead Sciences for research unrelated to the present work. SKC has previously received unrestricted project support from Gilead Sciences for unrelated projects. The authors declare that they have no other conflicts of interest to disclose.

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Bunting, S.R., Calabrese, S.K., Garber, S.S. et al. Where Do Health Professions Students Learn About Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV Prevention?. Med.Sci.Educ. 31, 423–427 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-021-01265-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-021-01265-3

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