Standardised patients with intellectual disabilities in training tomorrow's doctors

Abstract

Aims and method To develop a programme to help undergraduate medical students and postgraduate trainees to improve their skills in communicating with people with intellectual disabilities through teaching sessions that had input from simulated patients with intellectual disabilities. We conducted four sessions of training for 47 undergraduate 4th-year medical students. The training involved a multiprofessional taught session followed by a clinical scenario role-play with simulated patients who were people with intellectual disabilities. The training was assessed by completing the healthcare provider questionnaire before and after the training. Results There were improvements in the students' perceived skill, comfort and the type of clinical approach across all three scenarios. Clinical implications By involving people with intellectual disabilities in training medical students there has been a significant improvement in students' communication skills in areas of perceived skills, comfort and type of clinical approach which will raise the quality of care provided by them in the future.