Training Needs Analysis for Medical Students in Assessing Cognitive Functioning: An Observational Study

Research shows that medical students' knowledge and skills concerning the assessment of cognition in various neuropsychiatric conditions (e.g., Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia) are unsatisfactory. This research aims to conduct a training needs analysis (TNA) for medical students to identify and refer patients with neuropsychiatric conditions.

The study comprised two phases. First, developing a TNA toolkit to assess training needs in clinical tasks related to cognitive function assessment (by adopting the Hennessy-Hicks TNA toolkit); and second, through a self-reported survey, their training needs in cognitive function assessment were assessed. Data analysis involved calculating training gaps, importance scores, performance scores, training scores, and organization scores for various clinical tasks-stratified participants' study year; for training needs and trends, factor analysis and post-hoc analyses were conducted.

A total of 153 medical students from a tertiary care center participated in the survey. The participants rated their performance lower than the perceived importance of tasks, indicating a need for improvement in all competencies (P < .01). Pre-final-year students had the highest training needs, particularly in accessing literature, planning, and organizing care for patients with cognitive impairment, performing mental status examination, screening patients for cognitive deficits, and counseling them/caregivers about interventions (P < .01). Factor analysis identified a single dominant factor, suggesting a correlation among these skills.

Pre-final-year students require targeted training, whereas students beyond this stage can benefit from special training modules and awareness of available resources for cognitive assessment. The findings also suggest the importance of a hybrid approach involving training and organizational modifications.