Case-based e-learning to improve the attitude of medical students towards occupational health, a randomised controlled trial

Abstract

Objectives Undergraduate medical teaching in occupational health (OH) is a challenge in universities around the world. Case-based e-learning with an attractive clinical context could improve the attitude of medical students towards OH. The study question is whether case-based e-learning for medical students is more effective in improving knowledge, satisfaction and a positive attitude towards OH than non-case-based textbook learning. Methods Participants, 141 second year medical students, were randomised to either case-based e-learning or text-based learning. Outcome measures were knowledge, satisfaction and attitude towards OH, measured at baseline, directly after the intervention, after 1 week and at 3-month follow-up. Results Of the 141 participants, 130 (92%) completed the questionnaires at short-term follow-up and 41 (29%) at 3-month follow-up. At short-term follow-up, intervention and control groups did not show a significant difference in knowledge nor satisfaction but attitude towards OH was significantly more negative in the intervention group (F¼4.041, p¼0.047). At 3-month follow-up, there were no significant differences between intervention and control groups for knowledge, satisfaction and attitude. Conclusions We found a significant decrease in favourable attitude during the internship in the experimental group compared with the control group. There were no significant differences in knowledge or satisfaction between case-based e-learning and textbased learning. The attitude towards OH should be further investigated as an outcome of educational programmes.

Comparison of two case-based learning conditions with real patients in teaching occupational medicine

“…Similar results have been found in a number of studies on CBL in the field of occupational medicine (OM) (Radon et al 2006;Braeckman et al 2009;Kolb et al 2009;Smits et al 2012). OM is concerned with ensuring that workplaces and work practices are safe and not detrimental to employees' health.…”

“…Students taking part in the NetWoRM project (Net-based training for Work-Related Medicine) enjoyed working on e-learning cases as an add-on to their traditional teaching (Radon et al 2006;Kolb et al 2009). Smits et al 2012 found that online cases to improve the attitude of medical students towards occupational health, resulted in similar changes in knowledge and satisfaction as text-based learning. In another study, the efficacy of CLB in teaching OM was as good as workplace visits as evaluated by student self-reports (Braeckman et al 2009).…”

Developing Health Literacy Knowledge and Skills Through Case-Based Learning

“…Smits and colleagues compared case-based learning and traditional text-based learning in medical education and found no difference in student knowledge between the 2 teaching methods. 11 Another study evaluating the efficacy of case-based computer modules did find improvements in short-term knowledge, but the improvement was not maintained longterm. 12 In pharmacy education, Romero and colleagues reported enhanced student learning in a pharmaceutics course that used case-based learning, but the observation was based on a positive correlation between case study grades and course examination scores.…”

“…Strong objective evidence is lacking. [10][11][12][13][14][15][16] At the Feik School of Pharmacy, Applied Pharmacy Care is a series of 6 courses that focuses on the application of pharmaceutical care principles, pharmaceutical knowledge, and professional techniques to solve patient-and medication-related issues. 17 Health literacy had been taught in only 1 course, Applied Pharmacy Care II, to first-year (P1) pharmacy students.…”

The Attitudes of Physiotherapy Students Toward Occupational Medicine

“…The questionnaire was based on and adapted from previous works (Smits et al, 2012;Bhardwaj et al, 2015). In designing the questionnaire we started from the idea of what we like to know from our students and it consists mainly in two parts: some demographic data and the research data.…”