Table 1.

Change in Questionnaire Responses From Pre- to Post-Family Medicine Clerkship, 71 Pairs

Question	Mean (Post-, Pre-clerkship)		Test Statistic	P Value*
When you encounter someone you don’t know well with an obvious disability, do you feel:
Awkward	0.3644		3.4935	.0002
Afraid	0.0364		0.1324	.4473
Sorry for them	0.3730		2.7150	.0033
Are you comfortable around a person who:
Uses a wheelchair	−0.0840		0.9449	.8276
Is deaf	0.0366		−0.7407	.2294
Is blind	0.0507		−0.8687	.1925
Has a developmental disability	0.0934		0.7990	.2121
Question (correct answer in bold)	Pre-clerkship # (%) Wrong**	Post-clerkship # (%) Wrong**	Test Statistic	P Value*
What is the primary intent of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)?
Law on employment of PWDs
Education bill for children with disabilities
Federal civil rights legislation for PWDs	5 (7.4)	7 (10.5)	0.3991	.8246
Public building access regulations
What conditions are people with mental retardation (MR) at higher risk for?
a. seizures
b. obesity
c. dementia
d. a and c	54 (78.3)	24 (34.8)	26.5385	<.0001
e. all of the above
When assisting a person with a SCI onto the exam table, one person should grab under the arms and the other should grab under the knees.
True or False	22 (32.4)	23 (33.3)	0.0149	.6193
What descriptive term is appropriate?
a. the patient is confined to a wheelchair
b. the patient is a wheelchair user	30 (43.5)	0 (0.0)	38.8113	<.0001
c. the patient is wheelchair bound
d. the crippled patient in the wheelchair
What’s NOT a characteristic of adults with MR?
a. Concrete thinkers
b. Short attention span
c. Able to learn normally at a slower rate	37 (56.1)	21 (30.4)	9.0399	<.0022
d. Limited ability to generalize

PWDs—persons with disabilities

SCI—spinal cord injury

^*one sided non-parametric test

^**denominators vary slightly due to some students skipping questions