Wie beurteilen Simulationspatienten die Relevanz von Kommunikationsunterricht unter Berücksichtigung ihrer eigenen Arztbeziehung? Ergebnisse von Leitfadeninterviews

Abstract

Background: Simulated patients (SP) are amateur or professional actors who play a specific patient role. They are used for the training and evaluation of medical students. Previous research has concentrated primarily on the quality of this method. Little attention, however, has been given to how SP assess the course and how the activity influences them personally.Questions: SP were asked to comment particularly on the quality and relevance of the course on basic medical skills. The SP were also questioned about their experiences with doctors and the impact of their SP activities on their own role as patients and on their personal medical behaviour.Method: Using semi-structured interviews 14 SP (two of them men) were questioned about their experience. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The interpretive analysis was conducted by an interdisciplinary team based on Bohnsack s documentary method.Results: The relevance of the course was adjudged by the SP to be very high. In particular, the encouragement of practical experience, the communicative training of the students and working in small groups had, in their opinion, a positive effect on learning success. The quality of the course depends greatly on the individual performance of the lecturer. Due to their lack of experience, student tutors are perceived to be insecure and sometimes poorly prepared. Acting as a SP leads to a more critical questioning of one s own role as a patient, but also increases confidence in interacting with the doctor. Furthermore, some SP show greater understanding for the professional situation of doctors (e.g. lack of time or high demands).Conclusion: The experiences of SP are a valuable resource. They could be used more frequently in future to improve teaching and also, for instance, in the context of patient training. Especially in the latter case, SP would be suitable as assistant lecturers.