Sattelmayer Karl Martin, Jagadamma Kavi C, Hilfiker Roger, Baer Gillian
Physiotherapy, School of Health Sciences, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, UK.
School of Health Sciences, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland Valais (HES-SO Valais-Wallis), Leukerbad, Switzerland.
J Med Educ Curric Dev. 2020 Sep 10;7:2382120520927382. doi: 10.1177/2382120520927382. eCollection 2020 Jan-Dec.
Procedural skills are a central element in the education of physiotherapists. Procedural skills relate to the execution of a practical task. An educational intervention, which can be used to support skill acquisition of procedural skills, is mental practice (MP). Several studies have investigated the use of MP or imaging in medical education. This pilot study evaluated the application of MP on the acquisition of procedural skills in physiotherapy education.
This pilot randomised controlled study recruited a convenience sample of 37 BSc physiotherapy student participants. Two different complex task procedures (transfer and vestibular rehabilitation) were trained during this study. Participants in both the transfer (task procedure 1) and the vestibular rehabilitation (task procedure 2) arm of the study were randomly assigned to either MP or no MP.
For the transfer task, median performance at post-acquisition testing showed a moderate effect size in favour of the group using MP (: -0.3), but the findings were not statistically significant (: 0.2). Similar results were found for the vestibular rehabilitation task (: 0.29; : 0.21). In addition, the self-reported confidence was higher in the MP group.
Moderate effect sizes were identified in favour of MP at post-acquisition testing. In addition, the between-group difference was higher than the minimally important difference. The feasibility of the study was high based on quantitative feasibility measures such as the recruitment rate. Both these findings suggest larger well-powered studies should be considered to confirm the findings of this pilot study.
操作技能是物理治疗师教育的核心要素。操作技能与实际任务的执行相关。一种可用于支持操作技能习得的教育干预方法是心理练习（MP）。多项研究调查了心理练习或成像在医学教育中的应用。这项试点研究评估了心理练习在物理治疗教育中对操作技能习得的应用。
这项试点随机对照研究招募了37名理学学士物理治疗专业学生作为便利样本。在本研究中训练了两种不同的复杂任务程序（转移和前庭康复）。研究中转移组（任务程序1）和前庭康复组（任务程序2）的参与者被随机分配到心理练习组或无心理练习组。
对于转移任务，习得后测试的中位表现显示出有利于使用心理练习组的中等效应量（：-0.3），但结果无统计学意义（：0.2）。前庭康复任务也有类似结果（：0.29；：0.21）。此外，心理练习组自我报告的信心更高。
习得后测试中发现有利于心理练习的中等效应量。此外，组间差异高于最小重要差异。基于招募率等定量可行性指标，该研究的可行性较高。这两个发现均表明应考虑开展规模更大、效能更强的研究来证实这项试点研究的结果。
