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Comparative Study
. 2019:16:3.
doi: 10.3352/jeehp.2019.16.3. Epub 2019 Jan 11.

Comparison of effect between simulated patient clinical skill training and student role play on objective structured clinical examination performance outcomes for medical students in Australia

Silas Taylor  1 , Matthew Haywood  1 , Boaz Shulruf  1   2
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Comparison of effect between simulated patient clinical skill training and student role play on objective structured clinical examination performance outcomes for medical students in Australia

Silas Taylor et al. J Educ Eval Health Prof. 2019.

Abstract

Purpose: Optimal methods for communication skills training (CST) is an active area for research but the effect on communication performance in objective structured clinical examinations (OSCE) has not been so closely studied. Student role play (RP) for CST is common whilst volunteer simulated patient (SP) CST is cost-effective and provides authentic interactions. We assessed whether our volunteer SP CST improved OSCE performance compared to our previous RP strategy.

Methods: We performed a retrospective, quasi-experimental study of two second year medical student cohorts' OSCE data in Australia. The 2014 cohort received RP-only CST (N=182) while the 2016 cohort received SP-only CST (N=148). T-test and ANOVA were used to compare the total scores for three assessment domains: generic communication, clinical communication and physical examination/procedural skills.

Results: Baseline characteristics for groups (scores for Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR), Undergraduate Medicine and Health Sciences Admission Test (UMAT) and medicine program interview) showed no significantt difference between groups. For each domain, the SP-only CST group demonstrated superior outcomes in the OSCE and the difference between cohorts was significant (P < 0.01). Volunteer SP CST was superior to student RP CST when considering OSCE performance outcome., which was found across generic and clinical communication skills, and physical examination/procedural skills.

Conclusion: Better performance of the SP cohort in physical examination/procedural skills might be explained by the requirement for patient compliance and cooperation, facilitated by good generic communication skills. We recommend a volunteer SP Program as an effective and efficient way to improve CST for junior medical students.

Keywords: Australia; Clinical Competence; Communication; Medical; Patient Simulation; Students; Volunteers.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest

Boaz Shulruf has been an associate editor of the Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions since 2017, but had no role in the decision to publish this review. No other potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

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