Improving Clinician Communication About Contraception Using Teen and Parent Avatars
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Summary
In order to support the desire of most adolescents to delay pregnancy (parenting) until their own adulthood, pediatricians must be comfortable and skilled in having reproductive health conversations with adolescents and the mothers of adolescents. Advocates for Youth (AFY), a national, youth-facing, well-established, non-profit, is known for innovative sexual and reproductive health programs. AFY successfully implemented a virtual simulation for schoolteachers to practice sex education scenarios by interacting with culturally diverse student avatars. We will partner with AFY to adapt their novel simulation-based approach to train medical residents in using SDM with youth and parent avatars. Our long-term goal is to build clinician confidence in SDM and actual skills via simulation training with dyadic avatars. We will also explore how evaluation of clinician communication skills varies from youth-, parent-, and clinician-viewpoints.
Description
Specific Aims seek to (1) iteratively adapt and refine the simulation training (1a) and measurement tools (1b) with three community advisory boards (CAB) of separate groups of teens, parents, and clinicians; and (2) conduct a proof-of-concept pre-post evaluation of clinician confidence in counseling dyads after one-time exposure to the simulation (n=100 medical residents). We will record residents' communications in the simulation and a subset of clinicians, parents, and adolescents from each CAB will evaluate residents' SDM skills via the Person-Centered Contraception Counseling (PCCC) scale.…