Scripted role play: a technique for teaching sexual history taking.

Many inexperienced physicians are uncertain as to how to go about gathering a sexual history. They have had courses in basic history taking, but they do not know how to go about obtaining the information in a nonthreatening way. Their opportunities for interaction with real patients have typically been limited. Scripted role play is a very effective method for providing residents with an opportunity to enhance their sexual-history-taking skills. This article describes scripted role play as a teaching method; explains why it is effective for teaching sexual history taking; presents general guidelines for script writing for this purpose; details how to organize a teaching session; and provides some tips for the session facilitator.