Student Provider Perceptions of Latino Patients in Cancer Care Settings

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of the proposed study is to develop and evaluate an instrument to assess racial/ethnic discriminatory attitudes, beliefs and behavior among future healthcare providers. Data collected will be used to identify and describe discriminatory behavior toward Latinos among medical and nursing students in the context of cancer care. This is an innovative application with an important research population with previously tested data collection methods. Few if any studies have been conducted with this population regarding readiness to treat Latino populations. The project will use a web-based survey that will assess medical and nursing student knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors toward Latino patients receiving cancer education, screening, and treatment. Survey participants will be approximately 946 medical and nursing students from four educational institutions in South Carolina and Georgia. The instrument will assess student readiness to treat Latinos in cancer care settings as well as comfort with Latinos, cultural competence with Latinos, attitudes/beliefs toward Latinos, knowledge of Latinos, knowledge of cancer in Latinos, language proficiency and previous experience with Latinos. A preliminary draft of the survey instrument based on expert review, existing instruments and pilot data collected by the research team is appended. Specific aims of the project are to: 1) Develop and refine a survey instrument to assess medical and nursing student knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors toward Latino patients receiving cancer education, screening, and treatment; 2) Assess the instrument's psychometric properties;3) Assess medical and nursing students' readiness to treat Latinos in cancer care settings as well as other index measures; 4) Examine relationships between medical and nursing student readiness to treat Latinos in cancer care settings with index measures of cultural competency, comfort with Latinos ,attitudes and beliefs toward Latinos, knowledge of Latinos, Spanish proficiency and experience with Latinos. Examining the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of future health care providers toward Latino patients can inform the design of focused and effective interventions in medical and nursing education. Because Latinos are a relatively new population in the Southeast, interventions should be developed that are appropriate to the needs of the region. Public Health Relevance: The development of a well-designed survey instrument to assess nursing and medical students' readiness to treat Latino patients will provide a useful research tool for future studies in health disparities. Findings from this study will inform future educational interventions to prevent disparities in cancer care.