Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T08:55:12.800Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Improving Clinical Skills in Psychiatry Using Online Simulation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2022

Sonya Rudra*
Affiliation:
East London NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
Abigail Swerdlow
Affiliation:
East London NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom
*
*Presenting author.
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.
Aims

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted medical education with teaching moving online. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether online simulation is an effective tool for the delivery of student psychiatric clinical skills teaching. This has important implications for the future planning of psychiatric clinical skills teaching.

Methods

162 students were divided across nine online psychiatric simulation sessions held over a four month period. The sessions lasted 3.5 hours and consisted of three simulated scenarios with a professional actor and experienced facilitator. Students were asked to rate: confidence in taking a psychiatric history, conducting a mental state exam, formulating treatment plans, conducting risk assessment, assessing capacity and communicating with patients in psychiatry. Confidence ratings were completed pre and post session on Likert scale (1 = least confident, 10 = most confident). Students were also given the opportunity to provide qualitative feedback after the sessions. The study was conducted with permission from Associate Dean for Undergraduate Teaching and QMUL Centre Lead for Psychiatry.

Results

137 (92.7%) of students attending the workshop completed pre-session questionnaire and 122 (82.4%) completed post-session questionnaire. 95.1% students rated workshops as good/very good. Pre and post confidence comparisons showed significant increases in average confidence for all questions from pre (M = 5.1, SE = 0.2) to post (M = 7.1, SE = 0.2), t = 10.7 p < 0.001. Paired t-tests were used to compare average pre and post-session results for individual questions from the same session. All questions showed significant increases in scores. Qualitative feedback indicated that students valued the opportunity to practice, obtain feedback and requested more sessions.

Conclusion

Results show significant increases in confidence in psychiatric clinical skills using online psychiatric simulation. This supports our hypothesis that online simulation is an effective tool for delivery of student psychiatric clinical skills teaching. Students may benefit from online simulation increasing their confidence prior to attending psychiatric placements. This teaching method will also provide an additional method for practising clinical skills with increasing student numbers and demands on psychiatric placements. It therefore has important implications in the future of psychiatric education and could be adapted for use across clinical years and medical schools.

Type
Education and Training
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Royal College of Psychiatrists
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.