Training in childhood obesity management in the United States: a survey of pediatric, internal medicine-pediatrics and family medicine residency program directors

Details

• Alternative Title:
  BMC Med Educ
• Personal Author:
  Wolff, Margaret S ; Rhodes, Erinn T ; Ludwig, David S
• Description:
  Background
  
  Information about the availability and effectiveness of childhood obesity training during residency is limited.
  
  Methods
  
  We surveyed residency program directors from pediatric, internal medicine-pediatrics (IM-Peds), and family medicine residency programs between September 2007 and January 2008 about childhood obesity training offered in their programs.
  
  Results
  
  The response rate was 42.2% (299/709) and ranged by specialty from 40.1% to 45.4%. Overall, 52.5% of respondents felt that childhood obesity training in residency was extremely important, and the majority of programs offered training in aspects of childhood obesity management including prevention (N = 240, 80.3%), diagnosis (N = 282, 94.3%), diagnosis of complications (N = 249, 83.3%), and treatment (N = 242, 80.9%). However, only 18.1% (N = 54) of programs had a formal childhood obesity curriculum with variability across specialties. Specifically, 35.5% of IM-Peds programs had a formal curriculum compared to only 22.6% of pediatric and 13.9% of family medicine programs (p < 0.01). Didactic instruction was the most commonly used training method but was rated as only somewhat effective by 67.9% of respondents using this method. The most frequently cited significant barrier to implementing childhood obesity training was competing curricular demands (58.5%).
  
  Conclusions
  
  While most residents receive training in aspects of childhood obesity management, deficits may exist in training quality with a minority of programs offering a formal childhood obesity curriculum. Given the high prevalence of childhood obesity, a greater emphasis should be placed on development and use of effective training strategies suitable for all specialties training physicians to care for children.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Child Child, Preschool Education, Medical Humans Internship And Residency Medicine Obesity Questionnaires
• Source:
  BMC Med Educ. 2010; 10:18.
• Pubmed ID:
  20163732
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC2839969
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  K01DP000089/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHS/United States ; K24DK082730/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/United States
• Place as Subject:
  United States
• Volume:
  10
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:a1a889895bb878bd008b3855f512241ca5e21a7fb5fa287a02b832fbc98fa238
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/22922/cdc_22922_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 234.89 KB ]