Simulation for Labor and Delivery: What is the Impact on Undergraduates?

Abstract

Objective: To assess the impact of simulation for labor and delivery on the knowledge and skills of undergraduate medical students.
Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Railway General Hospital from June to December 2016. This study involved undergraduate medical students. Students of fourth year MBBS were divided into two groups; Group A was taught normal delivery through powerpoint interactive lecture, whereas group B was taught normal delivery on medium fidelity simulator. Both groups undertook a pretest comprising of MCQs and OSCE. After being taught labor through two different methods both groups had a post-test comprising of MCQs and OSCE. Pre-test and post-test consisted of questions related to knowledge component of normal labor and delivery mechanism. The two groups were compared on their knowledge and skills.
Results: Total of 44 students participated. There were 14(31.8%) students in group A and 30(68.1%) students in group B. The overall mean age of the students was 21.57 ± 2.17years in group A and 21.40 ± 1.84 years in the group B (p=0.14). Group B performed much better in skill of delivery having a mean OSCE score of 8.87 ± 0.10 compared to group A which had mean OSCE score of 5.54 ± 0.13 (p= 0.004).
Conclusion: Simulation based teaching showed significantly better results.There is dire need for the development of modern teaching and learning strategies considering the changing milieu of clinical practice in Pakistan.