Klemenc-Ketis Zalika, Cagran Branka, Dinevski Dejan
Faculty of Medicine, University of Maribor, Taborska 8, Sl-2000 Maribor, Slovenia.
Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Poljanski nasip 58, Sl-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Adv Med. 2018 Jan 15;2018:1408450. doi: 10.1155/2018/1408450. eCollection 2018.
A "virtual patient" is defined as a computer program which simulates real patients' cases. The aim of this study was to determine whether the inclusion of virtual patients affects the level of factual knowledge of family medicine students at the undergraduate level.
This was a case-controlled prospective study. The students were randomly divided into experimental (EG: = 51) and control (CG: = 48) groups. The students in the EG were asked to practice diagnosis using virtual patients instead of the paper-based clinical cases which were solved by the students in the CG. The main observed variable in the study was knowledge of family medicine, determined by 50 multiple choice questions (MCQs) about knowledge of family medicine.
There were no statistically significant differences in the groups' initial knowledge. At the final assessment of knowledge, there were no statistically significant differences between the groups, but there was a statistically significant difference between their initial and final knowledge.
The study showed that adding virtual patient cases to the curriculum, instead of paper clinical cases, did not affect the level of factual knowledge about family medicine. Virtual patients can be used, but a significant educational outcome is not expected.
“虚拟患者”被定义为一种模拟真实患者病例的计算机程序。本研究的目的是确定纳入虚拟患者是否会影响本科阶段家庭医学专业学生的事实性知识水平。
这是一项病例对照前瞻性研究。学生被随机分为实验组（EG：n = 51）和对照组（CG：n = 48）。实验组的学生被要求使用虚拟患者进行诊断练习，而对照组的学生则通过纸质临床病例进行练习。本研究的主要观察变量是家庭医学知识，通过50道关于家庭医学知识的多项选择题来确定。
两组学生的初始知识水平无统计学显著差异。在知识的最终评估中，两组之间无统计学显著差异，但他们的初始知识和最终知识之间存在统计学显著差异。
该研究表明，在课程中增加虚拟患者病例而非纸质临床病例，不会影响家庭医学事实性知识的水平。可以使用虚拟患者，但预计不会有显著的教育成果。
