A Pilot Study of Physician Assistant Student and Alumni Attitudes, Awareness, and Perceptions of Medical and Recreational Marijuana

Objectives: In this study, we aimed to explore current physician assistant (PA) student and alumni attitudes, knowledge, and perceptions towards recreational and medical marijuana. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study with PA students and alumni (N = 62) from a mid-sized university in the s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inHealth behavior and policy review Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 1463 - 1470
Main Authors Lawler, Kathryn, Strauss, Abigail, Kaczmarek, Allison, Martinasek, Mary P.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Alhambra Paris Scholar Publishing Ltd 01.02.2024
Health Behavior and Policy Review
Subjects
Attitudes
Clinical Medicine
College students
Core curriculum
Counseling
Cross-sectional studies
Didacticism
Drug interactions
Drugs
Education
Ethnicity
FDA approval
Health Counseling
Healthcare
Knowledge
Marijuana
Medical marijuana
Medical students
Patients
Physician Assistants
Pilot projects
Polls & surveys
Professions
Recreational drugs
United States > US
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Summary:Objectives: In this study, we aimed to explore current physician assistant (PA) student and alumni attitudes, knowledge, and perceptions towards recreational and medical marijuana. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study with PA students and alumni (N = 62) from a mid-sized university in the southeastern United States. We used an online QualtricsTM survey of 40 questions pertaining to both medical and recreational marijuana. Results: When asked about counseling patients on medical marijuana only 50.8% felt comfortable. Even fewer were comfortable with discussing druginteractions (39%). Participants felt that edibles were the safest route of administration (46.8%). The majority felt patient counseling should be incorporated into health sciences courses (79.7%). There was a statistically significant association between their knowledge and their comfort in answering questions about marijuana (p < .001) and between their knowledge and their comfortin addressing drug interactions (p = .005). Conclusion: Our results align with previous research concluding that a greater amount of marijuana education should be incorporated into healthcare professionals’ curricula.
ISSN:2326-4403
2326-4403
DOI:10.14485/HBPR.11.1.3