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Pubertal assessment: targeted educational intervention for pediatric trainees

  • Aditi Khokhar EMAIL logo , Sairaman Nagarajan , Yagnaram Ravichandran and Sheila Perez-Colon
Published/Copyright: August 18, 2017
International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health
From the journal International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health Volume 31 Issue 6

Abstract

Background

Timely and periodic pubertal assessment in children is vital to identify puberty related disorders. Pediatricians need to have working knowledge of puberty time and tempo. Pediatric residency is an important platform to acquire physical examination skills including pubertal assessment.

Objective

An educational intervention for teaching pubertal assessment was piloted on pediatric residents at our institution.

Methods

The intervention comprised of interactive lecture series, ID badge size Tanner stage cards and Tanner posters placed in residents’ continuity clinics. Pre-intervention, post-intervention and 3 months post-intervention surveys for participating trainees were administered to determine the effectiveness of the intervention. Attitudes, practices, knowledge scores, and barriers to Tanner staging conduct were analyzed.

Results

Forty-three residents participated in the intervention. Knowledge scores of PGY1 (5.95 ± 1.6 vs. 7.47 ± 1.4, p < 0.01) improved right after the intervention, as did self-reported clinical practices of all trainees 3 months post- intervention with regards to conducting external genital examination and performing pubertal assessment. Confidence levels of pediatric trainees in conducting pubertal assessment and comfort levels in assessing the need for endocrine referral based on abnormal Tanner staging improved after the intervention, although the effect was not statistically significant.

Conclusion

Our intervention is a worthwhile technique for teaching pubertal assessment to residents as it is simple to conduct, easily reproducible, provides baseline knowledge needed for recognition of normal pubertal development and puberty related conditions, and instills confidence in residents.

Keywords: educational intervention; pediatrics; puberty; residents; Tanner staging

Acknowledgement

Aditi Khokhar was a fellow in Pediatric Endocrinology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center at the time of research and is currently affiliated with Upstate Medical University.

  1. Support: No funding was sought or obtained for this study, and the authors had no conflict of interest or personal gain during its completion.

  2. Financial Disclosure: None.

  3. Conflicts of Interest: None

References

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Supplementary Material

The online version of this article offers supplementary material (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ijamh-2017-0064).

Received: 2017-04-13
Accepted: 2017-05-26
Published Online: 2017-08-18

©2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.1515/ijamh-2017-0064
Keywords for this article
educational intervention; pediatrics; puberty; residents; Tanner staging

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Editorial
  2. Clinical diagnostic suspicion: a key component to being a modern Argus in medicine!
  3. Original Articles
  4. Ecological perspectives on youth alcohol consumption in the Kuala Lumpur conurbation: a place-based study in Malaysia
  5. Pubertal assessment: targeted educational intervention for pediatric trainees
  6. Pediatric providers’ attitudes and practices regarding concussion diagnosis and management
  7. Pre- and post-exercise electrocardiogram pattern modifications in apparently healthy school adolescents in Cameroon
  8. Raising awareness on cyber safety: adolescents’ experience of a primary healthcare professional-led, school-based, multi-center intervention
  9. Comparison of different volumes of high intensity interval training on cardiac autonomic function in sedentary young women
  10. Rate of teenage pregnancy in Jordan and its impact on maternal and neonatal outcomes
  11. Metabolic syndrome, leptin-insulin resistance and uric acid: a trinomial foe for Algerian city-dweller adolescents’ health
  12. Life satisfaction and its relationship with spiritual well-being and religious practice in Iranian adolescent girls
  13. Subjective social status and its relationship to health and health behavior: comparing two different scales in university students
  14. Case Report
  15. Gastric cancer in a teenager: a case report
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