ABSTRACT
Introduction: Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) allows simulation of the interaction between the pharmacist (or the pharmacy student) and the patient in a community pharmacy or at a hospital setting. Hence, OSCE is nowadays considered the gold-standard for competency-based assessments in clinical disciplines such as Pharmacy. As a result of the pandemic situation, conventional face to face OSCE presents with challenges related to health and safety. Accordingly, alternative clinical competence assessments with similar objectives and standards for pharmacy students were designed. Method(s): OSCE was conducted during the academic year 2020-21 for fifth-year students after the completion of six months of practical rotations. Students completed an exam with five stations consisting of two face-to-face stations with simulated standardised patients and three online stations developed through the online learning platform Blackboard, each one with a duration of five minutes. The stations tested student knowledge, patient counselling and communication and acquisition of technical and/or clinical skills. Result(s): A total of 49 fifth-year students and ten examiners were involved in this OSCE hybrid format. The analysis of results showed that the best average grade was obtained at live stations. Comparing the results with previous conventional OSCEs (before pandemic) shows higher average grades for the hybrid OSCE celebrated in 2020-21. Amongst the participants in the hybrid OSCE, 33% of them preferred the online stations. Conclusion(s): During the COVID-19 pandemic, online stations have been implemented in OSCE as an opportunity to assess clinical skills in pharmacy students. The online version was effective for evaluating knowledge. However, there were limitations in the assessment of some specific skills such as communication.