Original Article

Content Analysis for a Statewide Substance Use Disorder and Pain Management Curriculum for Health Professional Students (ALAHOPE)

Authors: Heather D. Martin, MSBA, F. Darlene Traffanstedt, MD, Sue S. Feldman, RN, MEd, PhD

Abstract

Objectives: Alabama’s health professions schools have many common goals when it comes to educating their students about substance use disorder (SUD) and pain, but a statewide consistent SUD and pain management curriculum does not exist in Alabama. The ALAbama Health professionals' Opioid and Pain management Education (ALAHOPE) project set out to create an interprofessional curriculum around SUD and pain management that all Alabama health professions schools can use to promote consistent evidence-based teaching and a patient-centered approach around these two topics. An adapted form of the Kern model of curriculum development was used to guide the project. The first dimension of this model is problem identification, which requires identifying the desired future state. One of many assessments performed to identify the desired future state was an analysis of six external curricula. The purpose of this assessment was to critically document and analyze existing SUD and pain management curricula to inform the ALAHOPE curriculum content.

Methods: The learning objectives and detailed content topics of each curriculum were documented and categorized into content topics. These broad topics were used as one piece of a cross-thematic analysis of several future state assessments that led to the development of broad curriculum goals for the ALAHOPE curriculum project.

Results: Common trends found in the analyzed curricula included learning objectives not being all-inclusive or not matching the actual curricula content, combining SUD and pain management content, and including the risks of treating pain with controlled substances in content solely created for pain management.

Conclusions: These results can be used to help inform other SUD and pain management educational content.

This content is limited to qualifying members.

Existing members, please login first

If you have an existing account please login now to access this article or view purchase options.

Purchase only this article ($25)

Create a free account, then purchase this article to download or access it online for 24 hours.

Purchase an SMJ online subscription ($75)

Create a free account, then purchase a subscription to get complete access to all articles for a full year.

Purchase a membership plan (fees vary)

Premium members can access all articles plus recieve many more benefits. View all membership plans and benefit packages.

References

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. U.S. state opioid dispensing rates, 2019. https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/rxrate-maps/state2019.html. Published 2021. Accessed January 15, 2021.
 
2. National Academy of Medicine. Action collaborative on countering the U.S. opioid epidemic Nov. 12 public virtual symposium. https://nam.edu/event/action-collaborative-on-countering-the-u-s-opioid-epidemic-nov-12-public-virtual-symposium/. Published 2020. Accessed November 15, 2020.
 
3. Chen BY, Kern DE, Kearns RM, et al. From modules to MOOCs: application of the six-step approach to online curriculum development for medical education. Acad Med 2019;94:678–685.
 
4. Haight M, Bahner I, Belovich AL, et al. How is health science education tackling the opioid crisis? Med Sci Educ 2020;30:1295–1297.
 
5. Stewart DM, Mueller CA. Substance use disorder among nurses: a curriculum improvement initiative. Nurse Educ 2018;43:132–135.
 
6. Villarroel L, Mardian AS, Christ C, et al. Redefining pain and addiction: creation of a statewide curriculum. Public Health Rep 2020;135:756–762.
 
7. Muvvala SB, Schwartz ML, Petrakis I, et al. Stitching a solution to the addiction epidemic: A longitudinal addiction curricular thread across four years of medical training. Subst Abus 2020;41:475–479.
 
8. Barreveld AM, Flanagan JM, Arnstein P, et al. Results of a team objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) in a patient with pain. Pain Med 2021;22:2918–2924.
 
9. Association for Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse. What is AMERSA. https://amersa.org/what-is-amersa. Published 2022. Accessed January 15, 2021.
 
10. Martone A, Sireci SG. Evaluating alignment between curriculum, assessment, and instruction. Rev Educ Res 2009;79:1332–1361.
 
11. Antman KH, Berman HA, Flotte TR, et al. Developing core competencies for the prevention and management of prescription drug misuse: a medical education collaboration in Massachusetts. Acad Med 2016;91:1348–1351.