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The Utility of Virtual Patient Simulations for Clinical Reasoning Education

Virtual Patient Simulations (VPSs) have been cited as a novel learning strategy, but there is little evidence that VPSs yield improvements in clinical reasoning skills and medical knowledge. This study aimed to clarify the effectiveness of VPSs for improving clinical reasoning skills among medical s...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Watari, Takashi, Tokuda, Yasuharu, Owada, Meiko, Onigata, Kazumichi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7432110/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32722097
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17155325
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author Watari, Takashi
Tokuda, Yasuharu
Owada, Meiko
Onigata, Kazumichi
author_facet Watari, Takashi
Tokuda, Yasuharu
Owada, Meiko
Onigata, Kazumichi
author_sort Watari, Takashi
collection PubMed
description Virtual Patient Simulations (VPSs) have been cited as a novel learning strategy, but there is little evidence that VPSs yield improvements in clinical reasoning skills and medical knowledge. This study aimed to clarify the effectiveness of VPSs for improving clinical reasoning skills among medical students, and to compare improvements in knowledge or clinical reasoning skills relevant to specific clinical scenarios. We enrolled 210 fourth-year medical students in March 2017 and March 2018 to participate in a real-time pre-post experimental design conducted in a large lecture hall by using a clicker. A VPS program ((®)Body Interact, Portugal) was implemented for one two-hour class session using the same methodology during both years. A pre–post 20-item multiple-choice questionnaire (10 knowledge and 10 clinical reasoning items) was used to evaluate learning outcomes. A total of 169 students completed the program. Participants showed significant increases in average total post-test scores, both on knowledge items (pre-test: median = 5, mean = 4.78, 95% CI (4.55–5.01); post-test: median = 5, mean = 5.12, 95% CI (4.90–5.43); p-value = 0.003) and clinical reasoning items (pre-test: median = 5, mean = 5.3 95%, CI (4.98–5.58); post-test: median = 8, mean = 7.81, 95% CI (7.57–8.05); p-value < 0.001). Thus, VPS programs could help medical students improve their clinical decision-making skills without lecturer supervision.
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spelling pubmed-74321102020-08-24 The Utility of Virtual Patient Simulations for Clinical Reasoning Education Watari, Takashi Tokuda, Yasuharu Owada, Meiko Onigata, Kazumichi Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Virtual Patient Simulations (VPSs) have been cited as a novel learning strategy, but there is little evidence that VPSs yield improvements in clinical reasoning skills and medical knowledge. This study aimed to clarify the effectiveness of VPSs for improving clinical reasoning skills among medical students, and to compare improvements in knowledge or clinical reasoning skills relevant to specific clinical scenarios. We enrolled 210 fourth-year medical students in March 2017 and March 2018 to participate in a real-time pre-post experimental design conducted in a large lecture hall by using a clicker. A VPS program ((®)Body Interact, Portugal) was implemented for one two-hour class session using the same methodology during both years. A pre–post 20-item multiple-choice questionnaire (10 knowledge and 10 clinical reasoning items) was used to evaluate learning outcomes. A total of 169 students completed the program. Participants showed significant increases in average total post-test scores, both on knowledge items (pre-test: median = 5, mean = 4.78, 95% CI (4.55–5.01); post-test: median = 5, mean = 5.12, 95% CI (4.90–5.43); p-value = 0.003) and clinical reasoning items (pre-test: median = 5, mean = 5.3 95%, CI (4.98–5.58); post-test: median = 8, mean = 7.81, 95% CI (7.57–8.05); p-value < 0.001). Thus, VPS programs could help medical students improve their clinical decision-making skills without lecturer supervision. MDPI 2020-07-24 2020-08 /pmc/articles/PMC7432110/ /pubmed/32722097 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17155325 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Watari, Takashi
Tokuda, Yasuharu
Owada, Meiko
Onigata, Kazumichi
The Utility of Virtual Patient Simulations for Clinical Reasoning Education
title The Utility of Virtual Patient Simulations for Clinical Reasoning Education
title_full The Utility of Virtual Patient Simulations for Clinical Reasoning Education
title_fullStr The Utility of Virtual Patient Simulations for Clinical Reasoning Education
title_full_unstemmed The Utility of Virtual Patient Simulations for Clinical Reasoning Education
title_short The Utility of Virtual Patient Simulations for Clinical Reasoning Education
title_sort utility of virtual patient simulations for clinical reasoning education
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7432110/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32722097
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17155325
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