Highlights
- •Neurophobia is a fear of neuroscience and neurology.
- •Neurophobia starts in pre-clinical years in medical school.
- •NeuroQ questionnaire is a validated tool to measure neurophobia in medical students and the effect of a teaching intervention.
- •The Move neurology teaching program improves neurophobia.
Abstract
Background
Neurophobia is a chronic disease of medical students and junior doctors. Early detection
is needed to facilitate prevention and management as this fear can negatively impact
patient care.
Methods
We conducted a two-part mono-centric study at the faculty of Medicine, Sorbonne University,
in Paris. Part one: a cross-sectional study to validate a newly constructed neurophobia
scale, NeuroQ. Part two: a prospective longitudinal study to assess the impact of
The Move on student neurophobia using NeuroQ. A population-based sample of second-year
medical students of the 2019 and 2020 class of the Faculty of Medicine of Sorbonne
University were invited to participate.
Results
NeuroQ incorporates the main themes of the neurophobia definition and demonstrates
uni-dimensionality. Three hundred and ninety-five medical students participated in
the study (mean age was 20.0 years, SD: 2.1 years) assessing the effect of The Move
teaching on neurophobia. Two hundred and eighty-eight (72.9%) students were female.
After the Move teaching the mean NeuroQ score was significantly lower compared to
the baseline NeuroQ score (mean [SD] variation, −1.1 [2.6], p < 0.001). There was a 22.3% relative reduction in the number of neurophobic students
after The Move teaching.
Conclusion
Our results highlight the utility of NeuroQ in assessing (i) baseline neurophobia
and (ii) the impact of pre-clinical educational interventions on neurophobia. Furthermore,
we have shown the importance of pre-clinical educational interventions, such as The
Move, in tackling neurophobia.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 20, 2021
Accepted:
January 13,
2021
Received in revised form:
December 20,
2020
Received:
November 7,
2020
Identification
Copyright
© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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