Training and validation of standardized patients for assessing communication and counseling skills of pharmacy students: A pilot study

Abstract

Objective:The objective of this study is to describe the process of training valid simulated patients (SPs) for assessing communication and counseling skills of pharmacy students’ performance.Methods:This is a cross-sectional and correlational study. Psychometric properties of checklist and SPs’ portrayals and their filling of the checklist regarding assessing pharmacy students were assessed. Five SPs who were working in the simulated patient's pool were volunteered to take part in the project, which one of the SPs failed. Three scenarios, along with corresponding checklists, were developed based on the usual medications of different diseases consisting of asthma, respiratory infections, and osteoporosis. The SPs’ role-play performance was video-recorded and rated independently by two experts according to an observational rating scale to assess validity. The role-play was repeated after 1 week with the same scenario and the same doctor, to assess test-retest reliability. The inter-rater agreement between SPs and experts was determined by calculating the intraclass correlation coefficient and kappa coefficient.Findings:The four eligible SPs were all women, with an average age of 37 years. The correlation between mean scores of raters and mean scores of SPs was 0.91 and 0.85, respectively. The Pearson's correlation between mean scores of raters with SPs was 0.75. The checklists’ reliability, Cronbach's alpha, was calculated to be 0.72. The measured weighted Cohen's kappa for the ratings of by each SP, and the gold standard was between 0.53 and 0.57, indicating a moderate agreement. The inter-rater reliability kappa coefficient between raters was 0.75 (P = 0.01).Conclusion:The authors have demonstrated the technique of using standardized patients to evaluate communication and counseling skills of pharmacy students. The findings indicated that trained SPs can be used as an effective tool to assess pharmacy students’ communication and counseling skills.

Non-virtual simulation training and patient simulation existing for pharmacy students: A scoping review

“…The definition of communication used for this paper is the ability to communicate with patients, using effective verbal and nonverbal communication, considering patient's beliefs and attitudes, and delivering relevant information (Tindall et al, 1990;Kimberlin, 2006;Mafinejad et al, 2017). In this study, the term 'patient communication' includes emotional areas and skills such as empathy, social competency, and attitude.…”

“…), play a crucial role in fostering patient-medical staff relationships, therapeutic adherence, and improving therapeutic outcomes. Previous studies have noted that the outcome of an interaction between a patient and a pharmacist depends on the pharmacist's ability to use the correct communication and counselling skills (Shah & Chewning, 2006;Mafinejad et al, 2017). The Gaspar et al…”

Overview of implementation and learning outcomes of simulation in pharmacy education

“…The most commonly documented use of SPs in pharmacy curricula is for teaching and assessing interpersonal skills such as communication, motivational interviewing, and counseling skills, including the ability to show empathy during patient encounters 88,103–107 . Students may report improved confidence in their communication skills after interacting with SPs 86,108 .…”

“…89 The most commonly documented use of SPs in pharmacy curricula is for teaching and assessing interpersonal skills such as communication, motivational interviewing, and counseling skills, including the ability to show empathy during patient encounters. 88,[103][104][105][106][107] Students may report improved confidence in their communication skills after interacting with SPs. 86,108 In one study, mock patient interactions were more effective at teaching motivational interviewing skills to pharmacy students than peer role-play or written dialogue.…”

Perspective matters: assessment of medical students' communication and interpersonal skills by simulated patients from the internal and external patient perspective

“…This study suggested further training for simulated patients to standardize empathy ratings and improve inter-rater reliability. Trained simulated patients have been shown to act as consistent raters for communications skills [ 10 ]. The research question for our study was, whether trained simulated patients assessed medical students’ communication and interpersonal skills after physician-patient encounters from the internal perspective of the patient’s view (short: internal perspective) in the same way than from an external perspective of the patient’s view (short: external perspective) when rating the videographed interviews four months later.…”