Use of Theater to Invoke Empathy and Reduce Bias in Medical Students

The effect of medical humanities on medical student bias and clinical management is unclear. This study characterized medical student attitudes toward obese individuals and whether reading a play employing empathic characters can modulate negative reactions.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Medical Student Bias
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Dramatic Reading; Behavioral: Medical Lecture

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 129
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • California
    • Sacramento, California, United States, 95817
      • UC Davis School of Medicine

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• medical student at UC Davis, UC Irvine, or Mayo Medical School

Exclusion Criteria:

• none

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Theater; 1-hour dramatic reading of "The Most Massive Woman Wins"	Behavioral: Dramatic Reading
Active Comparator: Lecture; 1-hour lecture on the medical management of obese patients	Behavioral: Medical Lecture

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Explicit fat bias	Assessment of conscious bias against fat people (unit of measure from 11 to 99).	four months
implicit fat bias	Measurement using the implicit association test (IAT) with scores from -2.0 to +2.0.	four months
empathy scale	Score of Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE) from 20 to 180.	four months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Patient-Centered Care	Open-ended question on the clinical management of an asymptomatic, obese, elderly woman who is otherwise healthy, with coding for a response that is either patient-centered (ie: asking patient preferences and goals) or prescriptive (ie: telling the patient to diet and/or exercise).	four months
Appraisal of obesity	An open-ended question asking participants whether they felt obesity was primarily an issue of discrimination (ie: civil rights) or a public health concern (ie: medical).	four months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of California, Davis
• Collaborators: The Arnold P. Gold Foundation
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Richard L Kravitz, MD, MSPH, UC Davis School of Medicine; Study Director: Rachel Hammer, BA, Mayo Medical School; Study Director: Johanna Shapiro, PhD, UC Irvine School of Medicine

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: August 1, 2012
• Primary Completion (Actual): October 1, 2012
• Study Completion (Actual): November 1, 2012

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: November 26, 2012
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 28, 2012
• First Posted (Estimate): December 3, 2012

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 11, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 9, 2023
• Last Verified: April 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: 254423