Prospective Study on a Fast-Track Training in Psychiatry for Medical Students: The Psychiatric Hat Game

Abstract

Background: While medical students are losing interest in lectures in favor of other educational materials, many studies suggest the benefit of active learning, combined with gamified educational tools. The authors developed a psychiatric adaptation of the « Hat Game ». It was hypothesised that this game would increase both knowledge and motivation in medical students toward psychiatric semiology.Methods: This gamified fast-track training consisted of two teams and each team must guess as many psychiatric semiology terms as possible using different techniques (i.e. speech, mime). The study involved a pre- and post-evaluation of knowledge and a satisfaction survey.Results: Knowledge scores were significantly higher after the game than before. Improvement was maintained three months after the game. Satisfaction survey items highlighted that students enjoyed and would recommend this type of gamified training.Conclusions: The Psychiatric Hat Game improved knowledge of psychiatric semiology in medical students. Results suggest that it is a promising efficient tool to teach playfully medical semiology, with transferable features, utility and acceptability from one medical field to another. This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge advocating for serious games and gamified training in medical education.

The “Neurospeed” game: a fun tool to learn the neurological semiology

“…A long-term assessment, and the use of different questions in the MCQs for the pre-and for the post-test, would help mitigate these limitations in future studies. In a recent study (Clément et al), we demonstrated that the Hat Game, which is, like the Neurospeed, a card game aimed at learning the neurological semiology, maintained performance improvement 3 months after the game [20]. Second, since all students were enrolled in the Neurospeed game, we did not have a control group with a lecture for comparison.…”