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. 2023 Jul 5;101(7):602-608.

Is critical thinking potential correlated to critical appraisal skills of medical literature?

Mona Mlika  1   2   3 , Abdelmajid Naceur  4 , Georges Kpazai  5 , Faouzi El Mezni  1   3 , Lilia Zakhama  1 , Iheb Labbene  1 , Mohamed Jouini  1
Affiliations

Is critical thinking potential correlated to critical appraisal skills of medical literature?

Mona Mlika et al. Tunis Med. .

Abstract

Introduction: Critical appraisal of medical literature is a mandatory skill to practice evidence-based medicine. The relation between the critical appraisal skills and the critical thinking potential has been rarely assessed in the literature.

Aim: To assess the relation of critical thinking potential to critical appraisal of medical literature competencies. Besides, they tried to highlight the variation of the critical thinking potential according to the students' level.

Methods: The authors conducted a mixed study associating a quantitative and a qualitative approach. The study included second year (SYME), third year (TYME) and postgraduate medical students (CME) and family doctors (FD) from the same faculty of medicine. All the students received the same active training focused on critical appraisal of medical literature. They were asked to fulfil a pre-requisite test and a self-assessment questionnaire before the training session and a final test after the training. The self-assessment questionnaire was conceived by an expert committee and assessed the main characteristics of critical thinking consisting of sensitivity to context, self-correction and search for criteria. Three months after the training, the students were interviewed using a semi-structured interview. The SPSS software 16.0 was used.

Results: In our study, 58.9% of the students presented a high critical thinking potential profile. Their scores varied according to their levels with better scores in SYME and FD and intermediate scores in TYME and CME. The pre-requisite test scores varied according to the critical thinking profile and the level. On the other hand, final test scores didn't differ according to the critical thinking profile or the level.

Conclusion: Our results put emphasis on the variation of the critical thinking potential according to the students' levels. The better results of the SYME students in comparison to those in the TYME put emphasis on the necessity of changing curriculum in order to enhance the sensitivity and the inclination of the students.

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Figures

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Figure 1. Modèle de Mannequin utilisé dans les ateliers de simulation procédurale pour la chirurgie du ptérygion (1a: Une tête de mannequin sur lequel disposait un œil artificiel, 1b: Modèle d’œil artificiel avec le ptérygion en plastique souple (flèche jaune).
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Figure 2. score de performance chirurgicale global
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Figure 3. score de performance spécifique à la chirurgie du ptérygion
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Figure 4. Évolution du score « GRASIS » au cours de trois séances.
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Figure 5. Evolution du score global médian de performance spécifique à la chirurgie de ptérygion
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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