JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The use of simulation games (SG) to assess the clinical competence of medical students has been poorly studied.

Objective:

The objective of this study was to assess whether a SG better reflects the clinical competence of medical students than a multiple-choice questionnaire (MCQ).

Methods:

Fifth-year medical students in Paris (France) were included and individually evaluated on a case of pediatric asthma exacerbation using three successive modalities: high-fidelity simulation (HFS), considered as the gold-standard for the evaluation of clinical competence, the SG Effic’Asthme, and an MCQ designed for the study. The primary endpoint was the median kappa coefficient evaluating the correlation of the actions performed by the students between the SG and HFS modalities on the one hand, and between the MCQ and HFS on the other hand. Student’s satisfaction was also evaluated.

Results:

Forty-two students were included. The actions performed by the students were more reproducible between the SG and HFS modalities than between the MCQ and HFS modalities (p=0.04). Students reported significantly higher satisfaction with the SG (p<0.01) than with the MCQ modality.

Conclusions:

The SG Effic’Asthme better reflected the actions performed by medical students during an HFS session than an MCQ on the same asthma exacerbation case. Our results suggest that SGs can be considered as an additional modality to assess the clinical competence of medical students. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov (Identifier NCT03884114).