Department of Medical Education, East Tennessee State University Quillen College of Medicine, Johnson City, Tennessee, USA.
East Tennessee State University Quillen College of Medicine, Johnson City, Tennessee, USA.
Pharmacol Res Perspect. 2023 Oct;11(5):e01141. doi: 10.1002/prp2.1141.
Opioids are often prescribed to treat chronic pain ailments, despite lack of evidence for many conditions. Prescriptions frequently become the gateway to opioid misuse and abuse. In response to the opioid crisis, medical school educators in the state of Pennsylvania developed core competencies pertaining to opioids and addiction for which all medical students should demonstrate proficiency before graduation. To enable students to achieve these competencies, we developed a web-based app (IPEx) that delivers a gamified experience for learners in which they are (re)exposed to opioid competencies and practice applying pharmacologic principles in the context of a series of longitudinal patient scenarios. Learning and application are measured by student responses to application questions before and after each of five modules. Prior to launching the IPEx tool broadly, we wished to test the application questions; thus, we invited fourth year medical students to complete a 45 question quiz based on IPEx module content. Students had no specific preparation prior to taking the quiz but had been exposed to all content elsewhere in the curriculum. A total of 45 of 141 medical students (32%) opted to complete the quiz (mean score was 47% ± 13%; range 18%-73%). Cronbach alpha for the instrument was .74. These results suggest that the instrument has internal validity, and medical students have room for growth when it comes to application of opioid related competencies, a situation that the IPEx tool may be uniquely suited to remedy.
阿片类药物常用于治疗慢性疼痛疾病，但许多情况下缺乏证据支持。处方经常成为阿片类药物误用和滥用的入口。为应对阿片类药物危机，宾夕法尼亚州的医学院教育工作者针对阿片类药物和成瘾制定了核心能力，所有医学生在毕业前都应熟练掌握这些能力。为了使学生达到这些能力，我们开发了一个基于网络的应用程序（IPEx），为学习者提供了一种游戏化的体验，让他们在一系列纵向患者情景中重新接触到阿片类药物的能力，并练习应用药理学原理。学习和应用通过学生在每个模块之前和之后对应用问题的回答来衡量。在广泛推出 IPEx 工具之前，我们希望测试应用问题；因此，我们邀请了四年级医学生根据 IPEx 模块的内容完成一个包含 45 个问题的测验。学生在参加测验前没有任何具体的准备，但在课程的其他地方已经接触到了所有的内容。共有 141 名医学生中的 45 名（32%）选择完成测验（平均分数为 47%±13%；范围 18%-73%）。该工具的克朗巴赫α系数为.74。这些结果表明该工具具有内部有效性，并且医学生在应用阿片类相关能力方面还有很大的提升空间，而 IPEx 工具可能是解决这一问题的独特工具。
