Facts to Snacks. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Bite-Sized Animations in Teaching Palliative Care to Medical Students.

BACKGROUND: Current palliative care training in medical school is inadequate in preparing doctors to provide quality palliative care. Little attention is paid to determining effective methods of training.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the use of bite-sized animations in improving the confidence, knowledge and attitudes of medical students towards palliative care.

METHODS: A mixed methods cohort study was adopted for the study. 50 medical students without prior palliative training completed questionnaires before and after watching a 12-part animated palliative care video series called PowerFacts. Of these participants, 18 underwent semi-structured interviews.

RESULTS: The quantitative results showed that animations are effective in improving the confidence ( P < .001) and knowledge ( P < .001), but not the attitudes ( P = .183) of medical students. Confidence, knowledge and attitudes were not correlated. Analysis of follow-up interviews of a convenience sample of participants showed that animations can be effective in teaching knowledge and does fill some gaps in palliative education for medical undergraduates. However, the content delivered as a sole learning tool is inadequate in preparing medical students for clinical practice.

CONCLUSION: All participants achieved level 1 (reaction), some achieved level 2 (learning) but most did not achieve level 3 (behaviour) of the Kirkpatrick's model. There is a need for a multimodal approach in the comprehensive teaching of palliative care in undergraduate medical training to achieve all four levels of the Kirkpatrick Model.