Implementing and Evaluating Online Revision Sessions for the MRCPsych Paper a Examination

AIMS: Preparing for postgraduate examinations is stressful for many doctors, with psychological, financial, and social impacts. Ensuring that doctors feel supported with exam preparation is likely to improve their well-being and performance, whilst also potentially addressing workforce retention and differential attainment. This quality improvement project aimed to improve the confidence and preparedness of trainees taking the MRCPsych Paper A exam in the North West School of Psychiatry. METHODS: Six weekly online revision sessions were held for trainees preparing for the MRCPsych Paper A examination. One session was devoted to each major curriculum topic, whilst two covered neurosciences. The sessions were held over Microsoft Teams for 1 hour and chaired by senior trainees and Consultant Psychiatrists. The sessions incorporated a combination of PowerPoint slides, discussion about relevant theory, and interactive practice questions using Slido. A baseline survey was completed to ascertain trainees current levels of exam preparation and confidence. Questionnaires were administered at the end of each revision session to measure their impact and gather feedback. Trainees indicated the extent to which they felt confident with each curriculum topic and their responses were compared, at group level, before and after the revision sessions (1 = strongly disagree with feeling confident, 5 = strongly agree with feeling confident). RESULTS: 40 trainees completed pre-session feedback and 56 trainees completed post-session feedback. The mean confidence scores of trainees improved by between 25.4% to 51.5% after the revision sessions, with the lowest pre-session mean confidence score being observed for neuroscience and the greatest improvement being observed for psychopharmacology. 77.8% of trainees rated the revision sessions as ‘extremely useful’ and 22.2% perceived them as ‘useful’. All trainees agreed (43.4%) or strongly agreed (56.6%) that their knowledge improved after attending the sessions, and all trainees agreed (23.6%) or strongly agreed (76.4%) that they would recommend them to colleagues. Trainees favourite aspects of the revision sessions included completing multiple choice questions, combining Slido polling with PowerPoint slides, and the speakers explanations of difficult concepts. Suggestions for improvement included offering more frequent and longer revision sessions, concealing group voting choices on Slido until revealing the correct answers, and teaching more relevant theory alongside practice questions. CONCLUSION: Online group revision sessions combining interactive polling and didactic teaching are popular and useful amongst trainees preparing for MRCPsych Paper A. These sessions appear to improve trainees' self-reported confidence with exam curricula content, although further evaluation is required to determine whether they improve examination pass rates.