Small-Group Standardized Patient Encounter Improves Athletic Training Students' Psychosocial Intervention and Referral Skills

Abstract

Context: Athletic trainers provide psychological support, counseling, intervention, and referral to patients during clinical practice. However, students are rarely exposed to real-life opportunities to develop these skills. Objective: To determine if a small-group standardized patient (SP) encounter improved athletic training students' interpersonal communication, psychosocial intervention, and referral skills. Design: Cohort. Setting: One Midwestern university. Patients or Other Participants: Thirty-nine (14 male, 25 female; age = 22 ± 1.0 years) senior athletic training students. Intervention(s): The experimental group (n = 20) engaged in a small-group SP encounter to teach interpersonal communication, psychosocial intervention, and referral skills, in addition to normally scheduled classes and clinical education. The control group (n = 19) engaged only in routine classroom and clinical education. Both groups participated in an individual SP encounter to assess skills. Main Outcome Measure(s): A 19-item dichotomous checklist (yes/no) assessed participants on their interpersonal communication, psychosocial intervention, and referral skills (eg, listened with interest, asked about eating habits and menstrual period) during the individual SP encounter. A Fisher exact test evaluated differences between the experimental and control group scores for each checklist item. Mann-Whitney U tests were used to compare combined checklist scores between the experimental and control groups. A Bonferroni correction was performed to control for multiple comparisons. Results: The experimental group experienced a significant increase in psychosocial intervention and referral skills (U = 77.5, P = 0.001), but there was no difference between the 2 groups on interpersonal communication skills (U = 138, P = .149). Participants in the experimental group asked the SP about coping strategies for stress more often than the control group (Fisher exact test P < .001). Conclusions: A small-group SP encounter improved the participants' psychosocial intervention and referral skills but not their interpersonal communication skills. These results suggest a small-group SP encounter can provide learning experiences to better prepare athletic training students for clinical practice.