Delirium Whodunnit?: A Mystery-Based Group Learning Activity to Facilitate Development of Clinical Problem Solving Skills (FR482E)

Abstract

•Identify opportunities within one's own institution to develop educational games to facilitate clinical problem solving skills.•Discuss challenges inherent in implementing group-based educational games in the classroom setting.•Adapt a mystery-based group learning activity for use within one's own institution to facilitate clinical problem solving skills in delirium management. Gamification of classroom learning is becoming more common in health professional education and may be more effective in improving learner knowledge, skills, and satisfaction. However, there is no published use of educational games to teach palliative care. This innovative activity applies game principles to teach learners clinical problem solving skills relevant to delirium management in palliative care patients. To adapt and implement a group-based educational game at one's own institution. Educators interested in implementing game-based learning in the classroom Each participant is assigned a drug suspected of causing delirium in a patient case. Learners must request information about the patient case to determine which suspected drug is the culprit while proving to their peers that their assigned drug is not the culprit. Learners may accuse a drug of being the culprit as well as refute accusations made about their assigned drug. At the end of the activity, learners vote for which drug is the most likely cause of the patient's delirium. We emailed a follow up survey to assess how helpful learners found this activity. Eight third year pharmacy students completed the pilot Delirium Whodunnit? activity. Five participants completed the follow up survey. On a 6-point Likert scale, 80% strongly agreed and 20% somewhat agreed with the statement “The Delirium Whodunnit? activity helped me learn about medications that contribute to delirium.” This is an example of a game-based learning activity that promotes collaborative learning and development of clinical problem solving skills relevant to palliative care. This innovation is a low cost and engaging way to help learners develop clinical problem solving skills in symptom management that can be adapted for different types of learners and content. Next steps include formal evaluation of learner knowledge with pre- and post-tests in future iterations.