Undergraduate medical education in substance abuse: a review of the quality of the literature.

Purpose: To prepare to develop a medical school curriculum on substance abuse disorders (SADs), the authors conducted a review of the quality of the sparse published literature.

Method: The authors searched MEDLINE (1950 through December 2008) using OVID, PsycINFO, and PubMed to identify all studies of SAD interventions targeted toward undergraduate medical students. Of the 1,084 studies identified initially, 31 reported sufficient data to allow the authors to evaluate quality using Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI) scores.