A Structured Intervention for Medical Students Significantly Improves Awareness of Stigmatisation in Visible Chronic Skin Diseases: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Abstract

People with visible skin diseases often experience stigmatisation. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a new intervention for medical students to counter the stigmatisation of people with skin di-seases. The intervention was evaluated using a ran-domised controlled design. Effectiveness was as-sessed at 3 time points. Data from 127 participants were analysed. Regarding the outcome “social dis-tance”, a significant difference between the measurement points was observed for the intervention group (χ2(2) = 54.32, p < 0.001), which also showed a significant effect on agreement with negative stereotypes (F(1.67, 118.67) = 23.83, p < 0.001, partial η2 = 0.25). Regarding the outcome “agreement with disease-re-lated misconceptions”, a significant difference between the measurement time points was observed for the intervention group (χ2(2) = 46.33, p < 0.001); simi-lar results were found for the outcome “stigmatising behaviour” (F(1.86, 131.89) = 6.16, p = 0.003, partial η2 = 0.08). The results should encourage medical facul-ties to invest in such courses in order to prevent stig-matisation of people with skin diseases.