Multispecialty screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) training in an academic medical center: Resident training experience across specialties.

Background: The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has recently begun to fund programs that train medical residents on how to utilize an evidence-based validated system known as screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) for providing early detection and brief treatment of unhealthy substance use. This paper investigates training outcomes of multispecialty SBIRT training at one such program at Albany Medical Center (AMC), one of the initial SAMHSA grantees.

Methods: Training outcomes were measured across 3 domains of learning: trainee satisfaction, acquired knowledge, and perceived usefulness. The authors explored differences in learning experience by postgraduate year and by specialty.

Results: Overall, residents were highly satisfied with the training, and learning outcomes met objectives. Residents' ratings of usefulness did not vary by program year. However, the results indicate that relative to residents in other programs, residents in psychiatry and pediatrics found the training components significantly more useful, whereas emergency medicine residents found training components to have less utility. Residents who found the training relevant to their daily work were more satisfied and more receptive to SBIRT training overall, which may help explain difference scores by program.

Conclusions: Residents were highly satisfied with SBIRT skills training, although ratings of usefulness varied by residency program. Specialization by program and on-site modeling by senior faculty may enhance trainee satisfaction and perceived usefulness.