Effect of an Interventional Educational Wheelchair Program on Medical Students' Understanding of Manual Wheelchair Use.

INTRODUCTION There is limited literature exploring the benefits of interactive wheelchair educational programs in medical student curriculums. OBJECTIVE To identify the effect of an educational interactive wheelchair program on medical students' understanding of wheelchair use. We hypothesized that the program would increase understanding. DESIGN Repeated-measures survey study with post-intervention comparison. SETTING Inpatient acute rehabilitation center. PARTICIPANTS Out of 123 eligible fourth-year medical students on a mandatory Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation clerkship, 79 students participated. INTERVENTION All participants underwent a 2-hour educational wheelchair program consisting of: 1) a disability lecture; 2) a video on the importance of proper wheelchair type and fit, wheelchair prescription, as well as recreational wheelchair use; and 3) an interactive wheelchair experience. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Pre- and post-survey Likert scale questions measured medical students' understanding of four main areas: 1) impact of manual wheelchair use; 2) challenges of manual wheelchair use; 3) manual wheelchair skills; and 4) wheelchair etiquette. RESULTS A two-tailed sign test demonstrated a highly significant increase from pre- to post-survey scores in each survey section (P<0.001). Pre-survey and post-survey mean scores for impact of manual wheelchair use, challenges of manual wheelchair use, manual wheelchair skills, and wheelchair etiquette survey sections were 3.9 and 4.4, 3.1 and 4.4, 2.4 and 4.4, and 2.5 and 4.0 respectively. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrates that an interactive educational wheelchair program effectively increases medical students' understanding of manual wheelchair use. We recommend the addition of an educational interactive wheelchair program to medical student curriculums in order to improve medical students' understanding of manual wheelchair use and its impact on users.