Theme
10BB Simulation 2
INSTITUTION
University of Lausanne - Switzerland
Interdisciplinary Division for Adolescent Health, University Hospital of Lausanne - Switzerland
Teaching of communication and interviewing skills with adolescents to undergraduate students is essential as adolescents may be patients in various clinical settings beyond pediatrics and family practice.
Although training with adolescent simulated patients (ASP) has been proven effective to improve students’ skills with adolescents, the major challenge for teachers is to promote change of students’ skills and behavior in the clinical setting. A first essential step to address this challenge is the understanding of student’s views, expectations and needs regarding such training, and how training with ASP works. This in-depth exploration of students’ perspectives about training with ASP is the purpose of the qualitative part of this mixed methods study. This ePoster focuses on the qualitative part.
We conducted a qualitative study using grounded theory methodology. Data was collected through individual interviews and in-field observation. Study population consisted of fourth-year medical students participating in a workshop with ASP during spring or summer 2015.
Data collection procedures are summarized in the following diagram :
Along with data collection, the analytic process with several steps of coding and memo writing was conducted according to the principles of iterative process and constant comparison specific to grounded theory methodology.
Five major themes emerged from the first two cycles of coding. Four themes relate to students’ expectations and/or needs regarding the workshop and more broadly the consultation with an adolescent. The fifth theme regards what students perceive of the contribution of the workshop.
This study identifies important needs and expectations of students engaging for the first time in training with ASP.
Addressing and helping students wrestle with preconceptions and providing them a model to follow might help defuse their anticipated difficulties and find points of reference about adolescent patients. Getting students to identify potential issues of age difference and own adolescence experience has outmost importance to adopt the adequate position in the relationship with patients.
Efforts should also be done to optimize the authenticity of encounters through a minimisation of standardization of ASP in order to decrease the potential frustration resulting from the lack of real patients. Finally, as the observation of peers may partially address the lack of models, the group setting should be preserved with improvements regarding the size of groups and the duration of role-play.
The implementation of these findings in adolescent health teaching curriculum could substantially improve students’ learning experience and therefore students‘ skills in adolescent health medicine.