[ effect of employing "Standardized Patient" on history taking skills of medical students]

Introduction: Using Standardized Patient [SP] in teaching history taking provides medical students with an opportunity to learn how to communicate with patients. A Standardized Patient is a person who has been carefully coached to simulate an actual patient so accurately. This study was performed to assess the effect of using SP on improving history taking skill of third year medical students

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Methods: In a quasi-experimental study, 95 students of "Introduction to Clinical Medicine" were divided into two experiment and control groups in 2007-2008. The control group received instruction on history taking skills through usual method of lecture. The experiment group was instructed using SP. At the end of the course, the students' history taking skills were evaluated through an Objective Structured Clinical Examination [OSCE] and the mean scores of the two groups were compared. Also the students' viewpoints were investigated using a researcher-made reliable and valid questionnaire

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Results: Although no significant difference was observed between the scores of individual items of checklist in the two groups, the total mean score of the experiment group [7.03 +/- 1.349] was significantly higher than that of the control group [5.8 +/- 1.473] [P<0.004]. Most students [86.5%] preferred using SP for their instruction compared to lecture method

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Conclusion: Standardized patient provides an appropriate opportunity for new medical students to experience and learn history taking and communication skills. It is highly recommended to use SP not only in teaching history taking and communication skills but also in physical examination course