Modifications of the medical curriculum have included a compulsory course on disability.
Objective: To determine whether attendance in a course on disability and/or rotations in physical medicine and rehabilitation departments modify the attitude of medical students towards disabled people.
Methods: All third- and fourth-year students completed a translated version of the ATDPb. This questionnaire rates items evaluating attitude towards disabled people on a 6-point scale (minimum 0; maximum 180). Retro-translation was performed to control the translation. During the second year, all students had attended a general course in ethics. Fourth-year students had attended a 17 hours course on disability, and 21 of 78 had spent 9 weeks in the physical medicine and rehabilitation department. The study compares fourth-year students to third-year students, considered as controls, and students having spent a rotation in the physical medicine and rehabilitation department to others.
Results: The mean score of all students was 108.86+/-15.84 (73-160) on the ATDP scale. Males and females did not differ significantly, and the score did not change from that before the course on disability (109.95+/-14.98 vs 107.6+/-16.65, P=0.23) nor after a rotation in the physical medicine and rehabilitation department (113.52+/-11.42 vs 108.54+/-16.03, P=0.14).
Conclusion: Development and validation of scores that would fit better to the European cultural context would be useful. The present method of theoretical courses and rotations do not improve the attitude of students towards disabled people and should be modified if this objective is to be achieved.