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Lookup NU author(s): Dr James FisherORCiD, Dr Jess Bennett, Dr Abby Atkinson, Linda Errington
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2024 The Author(s). The Clinical Teacher published by Association for the Study of Medical Education and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Background: Medicine is recognised as a challenging course where exposure to potentially distressing content is inevitable. Some educators provide students with warnings before they encounter potentially upsetting content—trigger warnings. In this scoping review, we mapped the existing literature seeking to better understand how trigger warnings are implemented in medical schools and how they are influencing education within them. Methods: Bibliographic databases were searched to identify relevant literature, including searching for grey literature. Articles were included if they focussed on medical school education and were written in English. Data analysis was undertaken using both quantitative and qualitative approaches (thematic analysis). Findings: Searching generated 1284 potential records for inclusion. Articles not related to the primary research question were excluded. Abstracts of the remaining 841 articles were screened, and ultimately, 12 articles met criteria for full-text review. Of these, there were three empirical research studies. Qualitative analysis identified five main themes: purpose, implementation, student distress, responsibility and problems with terminology. Conclusions: The use of trigger warnings within medical student education remains contentious. There is a lack of consensus as to their purpose and much diversity in how they are implemented. There was limited published empirical evidence to inform practice in this area.
Author(s): Fisher J, Bennett J, Atkinson A, Errington L
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Clinical Teacher
Year: 2024
Pages: epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 04/11/2024
Acceptance date: 27/09/2024
Date deposited: 18/11/2024
ISSN (print): 1743-4971
ISSN (electronic): 1743-498X
Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Inc
URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/tct.13826
DOI: 10.1111/tct.13826
Data Access Statement: All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article
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