scholarly journals Distance assessment of counselling skills using virtual patients during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 196-204
Author(s):  
Dixon Thomas ◽  
Semira A Beshir ◽  
Seeba Zachariah ◽  
Kishore G S Sundararaj ◽  
Hossam Hamdy
Keyword(s):  
Assessment Method ◽  
Virtual Patient ◽  
Exit Exams ◽  
Virtual Patients ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Patient Simulator ◽  
Patient Counselling ◽  
Medical University ◽  
Pharmacy Graduate

Background: Reports on using virtual patients to assess counselling skills is scarce. Aim: This paper describes the feasibility and acceptability of assessing patient counselling skills of pharmacy students using a virtual patient simulator. Description: In this innovative method, a high quality simulator ‘Virtual Patient Learning’ (VPL) was developed at Gulf Medical University (GMU) and was used to assess the counselling skills of 15 pharmacy graduate students. Counselling skills were measured using a four-domain scoring rubric of 1 to 5 marks followed by instant feedback for improvements. Student and faculty satisfaction scores were collected based on the feasibility and acceptability of the assessment method. Evaluation: The average counselling skills score for all students was 68.4 (85.5%) out of 80 (range 54-76), with a standard deviation of 5.8. The overall student agreement on the feasibility and acceptability of the assessment method was 92.8%; it was 100% agreement for faculty. Conclusion: The use of a high quality VPL simulator in assessing counselling skills was deemed feasible and acceptable for students and faculty. The assessment was repeated among 30 Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) graduates with similar outcomes. The virtual counselling method will be used in the programme exit exams, as well as in students entering their experiential year. Further studies are required to assess its validity and reliability with more students.

scholarly journals Measuring the educational benefits of using a virtual patient to practice pharmacist-patient consultations

2021 ◽  
pp. 382-389
Author(s):  
Charlotte Lucy Richardson ◽  
Stephen Chapman ◽  
Simon White
Keyword(s):  
Educational Outcomes ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Virtual Patient ◽  
Virtual Patients ◽  
Regulatory Effect ◽  
Patient Counselling ◽  
Educational Benefits ◽  
Average Improvement ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Ethical Approval

Objective: Virtual patients (VPs) are a method of simulating clinical practice however little is known about their use by healthcare professionals. This study explores if, and how, one VP is educationally beneficial for pharmacists and pre-registration trainees to teach non-vitamin K oral anticoagulant (NOAC) patient counselling. Method: The evaluation used a before and after questionnaire measuring self-perceived counselling ability; further questions considered the outcomes of VP use. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics; ethical approval was granted by Keele University. Results: There was an average improvement in the user’s (n=94) self-perceived ability to conduct NOAC counselling (+10.2%). Although, there was variation in educational outcomes with changes in both knowledge and confidence reported. Some reported a decreased ability, but they were still positive towards the VP as it may have had a regulatory effect. Conclusion: Most users perceived multiple benefits of use; more generic outcomes related to counselling skills were also reported.

scholarly journals Evaluating the Difference between Virtual and Paper-Based Clinical Cases in Family Medicine Undergraduate Education

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zalika Klemenc-Ketis ◽  
Branka Cagran ◽  
Dejan Dinevski
Keyword(s):  
Family Medicine ◽  
Virtual Patient ◽  
Educational Outcome ◽  
Factual Knowledge ◽  
Virtual Patients ◽  
Multiple Choice Questions ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Difference ◽  
And Control ◽  
Clinical Cases

Introduction. A “virtual patient” is defined as a computer program which simulates real patients’ cases. The aim of this study was to determine whether the inclusion of virtual patients affects the level of factual knowledge of family medicine students at the undergraduate level. Methods. This was a case-controlled prospective study. The students were randomly divided into experimental (EG: N=51) and control (CG: N=48) groups. The students in the EG were asked to practice diagnosis using virtual patients instead of the paper-based clinical cases which were solved by the students in the CG. The main observed variable in the study was knowledge of family medicine, determined by 50 multiple choice questions (MCQs) about knowledge of family medicine. Results. There were no statistically significant differences in the groups’ initial knowledge. At the final assessment of knowledge, there were no statistically significant differences between the groups, but there was a statistically significant difference between their initial and final knowledge. Conclusions. The study showed that adding virtual patient cases to the curriculum, instead of paper clinical cases, did not affect the level of factual knowledge about family medicine. Virtual patients can be used, but a significant educational outcome is not expected.

scholarly journals NEW TASKS AND FUNCTIONS OF THE TEACHER OF INNOVATIVE TYPE IN THE PREPARATION OF THE COMPETENT DOCTOR

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaroslava Kulbashna ◽  
Elena Tkachuk ◽  
Valeriia Zakharova
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Medical School ◽  
Knowledge Acquisition ◽  
High Quality ◽  
University Teachers ◽  
Educational Establishment ◽  
Personal Changes ◽  
The University ◽  
Medical University ◽  
Language Competencies

The article reveals the roles and functions of the modern teacher of higher medical educational establishment (instructor, trainer, tutor, mentor, coach, facilitator, manager, researcher) in creating high-quality experience for students and ensuring conditions for their knowledge acquisition, competencies and skills. It was substantiated the necessity of updating the pedagogical paradigm in the higher medical school according to evolutionary personal changes of the modern youth generation. It is also established that future doctors’ healthcare and foreign language competencies formation are not evaluated adequately among the university teachers’ functions. The key tasks of the modern medical university teachers, which are interrelated and interdependent with each other, are determined.

scholarly journals Assessing the Quality of Life in Medical Students in Ardabil University of Medical Sciences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raana Jafarizadeh ◽  
Somayeh Zeynizadeh-Jeddi ◽  
Akbar Pirzadeh ◽  
Mahzad Yousefian ◽  
Firouz Amani
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
University Students ◽  
Demographic Data ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Medical Sciences ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Medical University

Introduction: Quality of life (QOL) is an important index in society that need for evaluation in all age groups people especially in medical university students as a people that their physical and mental health is related with community health. This study aims to investigate the quality of life (QOL) of Ardabil University of Medical Sciences. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study that has been conducted on 200 students who selected by random sampling method from Ardabil medical university students. The QOL was measured by WHOQOL-BREF which its validity and Reliability were investigated and approved. This questionnaire include 26 questions in four dimensions (physical, mental, social and environmental health). Collected data we analyzed by statistical test such as t-test for compare the mean of QOL score among demographic data. Results: Of all students, 57% were male and 91.5% were single. Of all students, 56% had desired quality of life. The relationships between QOL and variables such as gender, educational level, marital status and age of students wasn’t significant. The mean difference of four dimension scores among two sexes was statistically significant. The mean of Physical health dimension score was 11.6±2.1, Psychological was 12.3±2.4, Social relationships was 13.1±3.4 and environment was 12.7±3.2. The mean of total score of QOL in all students was 12.4±2.3. Conclusion: Results showed that the QOL of all students were in high level and in four dimension of QOL the female students had significant higher score than male students.

Learner Acceptance of Using Virtual Patient Encounters to Train Foreign Healthcare Professionals in Swedish

2017 ◽  
pp. 379-393
Author(s):  
Uno G. H. Fors ◽  
Olivier Courteille
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environments ◽  
Communication Skills ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Virtual Patient ◽  
Patient Communication ◽  
Virtual Patients ◽  
Educational Value ◽  
Good Communication ◽  
Professional Needs ◽  
Almost All

Healthcare professionals need good communication skills to be able to communicate with patients. In such provider-patient communication, the professional needs to be well understood by the patient, but also be able to understand subtle parts of a medical history taking dialogue with worried, sick or mentally affected patients. Virtual Patients (VPs) – learning environments that simulate encounters between a patient and a physician – were used to prepare 26 immigrating professionals in Swedish for healthcare practitioners. The professionals were speaking nine different foreign languages and used two different VP systems to train patient communication. Almost all participants welcomed the use of VPs for training communication in healthcare Swedish and 19 of the 26 users indicated that they considered that VPs should be mandatory to use in future courses. Targeted individual training in provider-patient communication with Virtual Patients seems to be of great educational value and well accepted by immigrating healthcare professionals.

scholarly journals Automatic analysis of summary statements in virtual patients - a pilot study evaluating a machine learning approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Inga Hege ◽  
Isabel Kiesewetter ◽  
Martin Adler
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Virtual Patient ◽  
Global Rating ◽  
Virtual Patients ◽  
Immediate Feedback ◽  
Assessment Scores ◽  
Reasoning Abilities ◽  
Reliable Assessment ◽  
Machine Learning Approach ◽  
Computer Based

Abstract Background The ability to compose a concise summary statement about a patient is a good indicator for the clinical reasoning abilities of healthcare students. To assess such summary statements manually a rubric based on five categories - use of semantic qualifiers, narrowing, transformation, accuracy, and global rating has been published. Our aim was to explore whether computer-based methods can be applied to automatically assess summary statements composed by learners in virtual patient scenarios based on the available rubric in real-time to serve as a basis for immediate feedback to learners. Methods We randomly selected 125 summary statements in German and English composed by learners in five different virtual patient scenarios. Then we manually rated these statements based on the rubric plus an additional category for the use of the virtual patients’ name. We implemented a natural language processing approach in combination with our own algorithm to automatically assess 125 randomly selected summary statements and compared the results of the manual and automatic rating in each category. Results We found a moderate agreement of the manual and automatic rating in most of the categories. However, some further analysis and development is needed, especially for a more reliable assessment of the factual accuracy and the identification of patient names in the German statements. Conclusions Despite some areas of improvement we believe that our results justify a careful display of the computer-calculated assessment scores as feedback to the learners. It will be important to emphasize that the rating is an approximation and give learners the possibility to complain about supposedly incorrect assessments, which will also help us to further improve the rating algorithms.

Influence of facilities performance on student’s satisfaction in Northern Nigerian universities

Facilities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 168-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isa Abdullahi ◽  
Wan Zahari Wan Yusoff
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Student Satisfaction ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Success Factor ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Building Components ◽  
Building Component ◽  
Students Satisfaction

PurposeHigher institutions in Nigeria have witnessed an increase in the number of student enrolments; Northern Nigerian universities are not excluded. As the number of students increases, so do their needs in terms of facilities such as lecture halls, libraries, laboratories, accommodation, studios, furniture and other auxiliary facilities services (among others things). The purpose of this study is to explore the structural characteristics of building features’ performance and to statistically group them into building components (dependent) and physical and non-physical building features (independent) constructs, relating to influence of facilities’ performance in student satisfaction in Northern Nigerian universities.Design/methodology/approachQuestionnaires used were designed to collect data on both academic facilities, based on student experience and satisfaction with respect to physical and non-physical facilities. The school building assessment method questionnaire by Sanoff (2001) was adapted. Hence, the validity and reliability of measures was examined via academicians and data analysis with statistical package of social science (SPSS) version 22. In general, the values of alpha coefficients were above 0.80.FindingsThe result of exploratory factor analysis revealed that all factors loaded more than 0.61. In conclusion, the results indicated acceptable factor loadings and effective grouping of the features according to the conceptualised framework for the building component. A hypothetical model of building components was then proposed, suggesting the effects of physical and non-physical building features on building components.Research limitations/implicationsThis research has been applied to a Northern Nigerian university. The research should be expanded to other institutions offering higher education.Practical implicationsBased on a conceptual framework, the study gives practical insights concerning the performance of building component as a key success factor for higher education institutions’ (HEIs) facilities.Originality/valueTherefore, the need to develop and improve instruments that will reflects facilities performance for students satisfaction in Nigerian universities became paramount. Thus there is lack of an integrating framework for facilities performance as well as students satisfaction and experience in the context of Nigerian HEIs, especially in the region of northern Nigeria.

Parameterizing mental model ascription across intelligent agents

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie McShane
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Intelligent Agents ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Virtual Patient ◽  
Prototype System ◽  
Virtual Patients ◽  
Artificial Intelligent ◽  
Value Sets ◽  
Real Patients

Mental model ascription – also called mindreading – is the process of inferring the mental states of others, which happens as a matter of course in social interactions. But although ubiquitous, mindreading is presumably a highly variable process: people mindread to different extents and with different results. We hypothesize that human mindreading ability relies on a large number of personal and contextual features: the inherent abilities of specific individuals, their current physical and mental states, their knowledge of the domain of discourse, their familiarity with the interlocutor, the risks associated with an incorrect assessment of intent, and so on. This paper presents a theory of mindreading that models diverse artificial intelligent agents using an inventory of parameters and value sets that represent traits of humans and features of discourse contexts. Examples are drawn from Maryland Virtual Patient, a prototype system that will permit medical trainees to diagnose and treat cognitively modeled virtual patients with the optional assistance of a virtual tutor. Since real patients vary greatly with respect to physiological and cognitive features, so must a society of virtual patients. Modeling such variation is one of the goals of the overall OntoAgent program of research and development.

Validation of an Instrument for Real-Time Assessment of Neonatal Intubation Skills: A Randomized Controlled Simulation Study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindie J.M.K. Kuijpers ◽  
Mathijs Binkhorst ◽  
Nicole K. Yamada ◽  
Romy N. Bouwmeester ◽  
Arno F.J. van Heijst ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Construct Validity ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Simulation Study ◽  
Intraclass Correlation ◽  
Intervention Group ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Patient Simulator ◽  
Randomized Controlled ◽  
Time Assessment

Objective This study aimed to evaluate the construct validity and reliability of real-time assessment of a previously developed neonatal intubation scoring instrument (NISI). Study Design We performed a randomized controlled simulation study at a simulation-based research and training facility. Twenty-four clinicians experienced in neonatal intubation (“experts”) and 11 medical students (“novices”) performed two identical elective intubations on a neonatal patient simulator. Subjects were randomly assigned to either the intervention group, receiving predefined feedback between the two intubations, or the control group, receiving no feedback. Using the previously developed NISI, all intubations were assessed, both in real time and remotely on video. Construct validity was evaluated by (1) comparing the intubation performances, expressed as percentage scores, with and without feedback, and (2) correlating the intubation performances with the subjects' level of experience. The intrarater reliability, expressed as intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), of real-time assessment compared with video-based assessment was determined. Results The intervention group contained 18 subjects, the control group 17. Background characteristics and baseline intubation scores were comparable in both groups. The median (IQR) change in percentage scores between the first and second intubation was significantly different between the intervention and control group (11.6% [4.7–22.8%] vs. 1.4% [0.0–5.7%], respectively; p = 0.013). The 95% CI for this 10.2% difference was 2.2 to 21.4%. The subjects' experience level correlated significantly with their percentage scores (Spearman's R = 0.70; p <0.01). ICC's were 0.95 (95% CI: 0.89–0.97) and 0.94 (95% CI: 0.89–0.97) for the first and second intubation, respectively. Conclusion Our NISI has construct validity and is reliable for real-time assessment. Key Points

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