AbstractsMedical & Health Science

Despite e-learning becoming more established in medical education, there remains a lack of e-learning resources teaching indigenous health at the undergraduate level. There is markedly less evidence to support cultural competency e-learning resources that integrate clinical and cultural (specifically indigenous) teaching content in one package, and no published evaluation of such resources at the undergraduate or postgraduate level. This study utilised a Kaupapa Maori Research (KMR) methodology to incorporate Māori beliefs, values and experiences and was conceived, planned and implemented with the intention to support Māori health gains. An e-learning resource designed to integrate Hauora Māori and clinical content (specifically schizophrenia) was developed and evaluated by fifth year medical students at the University of Otago, Christchurch (UOC) and Wellington (UOW) Schools of Medicine, and Rural Medical Immersion Programme (RMIP). The evaluation method consisted of a pre- and post-test of student knowledge, a student feedback questionnaire, a student course component comparison questionnaire, and a teaching staff review questionnaire. The findings of this study suggest that an e-learning resource integrating indigenous health and clinical content could provide an innovative and useful means of adding teaching value to an indigenous health and clinical curriculum and be equally as effective across a number of demographic groups of undergraduate medical students. It appears that the benefits of developing such a resource outweigh any costs that may be incurred, and this type of integrated resource can serve as an effective means of delivering cultural competency training to future health practitioners, helping to decrease the burden of health inequality in indigenous populations.