Comparison of Traditional Training and Appendectomy Simulation Moulage on Knowledge and Clinical Skills of Surgical Technology Students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in 2019

Abstract

Abstract: Aim: Surgical procedures are among the most difficult procedures in medical education. Although professors use a combination of instructional methods such as lecturing, video playback, and PowerPoint to better demonstrate surgery procedures for training purposes, students need to practice in a simulated environment to distinguish various organs and increase their clinical skills during surgery. The use of moulages and mannequins is a common method to create a simulated environment, which is associated with a number of challenges in spite of benefits mentioned for simulation in medical education. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the effect of using appendectomy moulage on clinical knowledge and skill of surgical technology students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in 2019. Methods: This study is an educational research and an intervention conducted after obtaining permission from Vice chancellor for research as well as ethics code and used appendectomy moulage to teach surgical technology students of Tabriz School of Nursing and Midwifery. In this research, all first semester students of surgical technology were selected and randomly divided into two groups. For one group, appendectomy surgery was taught using the traditional training method, namely speech, Q & A, video playback and PowerPoint (group α). For the next group, the procedure was a practical scenario designed in surgical technology laboratory using appendectomy surgery moulage (group β). After two weeks, both groups were subject to another training method (group α with simulation training and group β with traditional education). The clinical knowledge and skills of both groups were assessed and compared using tests and a self-assessment checklist in two steps before and after training of each methods alone and in combination. Results: The results of repeated measures ANOVA showed that knowledge and self-assessment of students' clinical skills increased after training using either traditional or simulation method. However, the differences between these two educational methods and their effect were evaluated using Bonferroni’s multiple adjusted comparison, which showed that traditional training had a positive effect on increasing knowledge and that simulation training exerted a positive impact on increasing self-assessment of clinical skills. Also, two weeks after assessing the persistence of knowledge and self-assessment of clinical skills by both training methods, the persistence was higher following traditional education relative to simulation training. In this study, the effect of combined training method was greater than any of the training methods alone. Besides, the knowledge and self-assessment scores of clinical skills was significantly higher in group α that first received the traditional training and then participated in simulation class. Conclusion: Many studies have been conducted in the field of simulation training and its comparison with other educational methods, and the results of a majority of them are in line with ours research regarding the effect of traditional training on knowledge enhancement as well as the impact of simulation on increasing clinical skills. In addition, the findings of this study showed that educational outcomes are improved by creating the necessary surgical knowledge background in students through traditional training as well as enhancing the learning using simulation training. Therefore, based on the findings, the learning experience of these students will be improved if the concepts, definitions and methods of surgery are initially instructed using traditional methods such as lectures, questions and answers, followed by simulations to demonstrate the skills.