Nematian Hossein, Masoumnia Amir Masoud, Shakiba Saeed, Milan Nesa, Vahdati Zahra, Oryadi Zanjani Leila, Saeid Ershadi Farhoud, Mehrpour Saeed Reza, Payeshenas Morteza, Nabian Mohammad Hossein
School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Center of Orthopedic Trans-Disciplinary Applied Research (COTAR), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
J Surg Res. 2023 Jul;287:134-141. doi: 10.1016/j.jss.2023.02.007. Epub 2023 Mar 16.
We conducted a single-blind, prospective, randomized, 3-arm controlled trial to compare the efficacy of interactive and noninteractive video-based with instructor-led teaching in acquiring and retaining basic surgical skills.
Participants were pretested after providing written instruction using a simulator. After the pretest, students were randomized to three groups: noninteractive video-based instruction (NIVBI), instructor-led teaching with concurrent feedback, and interactive video-based instruction (IVBI). An immediate post-test and a retention test were performed 1 mo after the practice session's end to assess the efficacy of practice conditions. Two experts blinded to the experimental condition evaluated performance using expert-based assessment. Data were analyzed using SPSS.
There were no differences in expert-based assessments between groups at the pretest. All three groups showed significant improvements in expert-based scores between the pretests and post-tests as well as between pretests and retention tests (P < 0.0001). Instructor-led teaching and IVBI were equally effective initially for teaching this skill to naive medical students and showed better performance than NIVBI (P < 0.0001 each). At retention, IVBI displayed superior performance compared to NIVBI and the instructor-led group (P < 0.0001 each).
Our result showed that video-based instruction could be as effective as instructor-led teaching in acquiring basic surgical skills. These findings support the idea that with thoughtful incorporation into technical skill curricula, video-based instruction may efficiently use faculty time and serve as a helpful adjunct for basic surgical skills training.
