JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the healthcare sector and caused a major disruption to medical education and training. While several recent studies discuss medical students’ role and integration in clinical activities during the pandemic, knowledge gaps exist concerning their role and potential benefit in designing and leading teaching activities during this period.

Objective:

The aim of our study was to prospectively assess the impact, in terms of confidence, cognitive knowledge, and satisfaction of a training activity for second year medical students, designed and led by student-teachers for nasopharyngeal swabs and intramuscular injections at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Methods:

This was a mixed-methods pre-post and satisfaction surveys study. Activities were designed using evidence-based teaching methodologies based on the SMART criteria. Pre-post activity surveys based on validated tools were designed to assess perception of confidence and cognitive knowledge. An additional evidence-based survey was designed to assess satisfaction from mentioned activities. Instructional design was blended with a pre-session e-learning activity and a two-hour practice session using simulators.

Results:

Students' confidence in performing intramuscular injections and nasal swabs significantly increased on a five-points Likert-scale for both procedures, from 3.31 (SD=1.23) and 3.59 (SD=1.13) before to 4.45 (SD=0.62) and 4.32 (SD=0.76) after the activity (p<0.01) respectively. Perceptions of cognitive knowledge acquisition concerning indications and contraindications also significantly increased for both activities. For the nasopharyngeal swab, cognitive knowledge acquisition concerning the indications increased from 2.7 (SD=1.24) to 4.15 (SD=0.83) and from 2.64 (SD=1.1) to 4.34 (SD= 0.65) for the intramuscular injection. Knowledge of contraindications for both activities, increased from 2.43 (SD=1.1) to 3.71 (SD=1.12) and from 2.49 (SD=1.13) to 4.19 (SD=0.63) respectively. High satisfaction rates were reported for both activities.

Conclusions:

Student-teacher-based blended activities to train commonly performed procedural skills seem effective to increase confidence and cognitive knowledge among novice medical students and should be further integrated within a medical school curriculum. Blended-learning instructional design increases students’ satisfaction about clinical competencies activities and liberates time for practical activities, thus potentially improving competency. More research should be conducted concerning the impact of advanced medical student-designed and -led clinical activities.