Volume 29, Issue 4, 2020
DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.815
A randomized controlled trial of sequential cardiac auscultation for medical students
Abstract
Objectives: Cardiac auscultation is an important technique for assessing the heart. However, because of recent technological developments, stethoscopes have gradually been abandoned and the ability of young physicians to perform auscultation has declined. We aimed to compare a sequential cardiac auscultation teaching method with the traditional teaching method and to determine whether the new method can improve the cardiac auscultation ability of medical students.
Methods: A randomized controlled trial for cardiac auscultation was performed, involving 180 junior-year medical undergraduates. Sequential cardiac auscultation was used an experimental intervention and was compared with the traditional method used in a control group. Evaluation of all participants was conducted through cardiac auscultation on a simulated patient. Each test was composed of 20 standard cardiac auscultation problems delivered immediately after and 1 month and 6 months after teaching intervention (T2 and T3). A self-administered questionnaire was used to evaluate the students’ attitudes, total learning times, and conditions under each teaching method.
Results: There was no significant difference in evaluation grade between the two groups immediately after teaching intervention. Later, the grades of the two groups decreased to some extent. The decrease in the experimental group was less sudden than that in the control group. At 1 month and 6 months after teaching intervention, the grades in the experimental group were significantly better than those in the control group (T2: 16.80 ± 1.79 vs. 15.53 ± 2.19, t = 2.451, p = 0.017; T3: 15.40 ± 2.22 vs. 13.37 ± 3.09, t = 2.926, p = 0.005). Most students in the experimental group held positive attitudes toward the sequential cardiac auscultation teaching method.
Conclusions: Cardiac auscultation is a necessary skill for physicians. The sequential cardiac auscultation teaching method can allow young medical students to simply and effectively grasp aspects relevant to cardiac auscultation.
Article summary
Strengths and limitations of this study the SR2SMP sequential cardiac auscultation method simplifies many complicated points of knowledge into a text description through highly generalized knowledge and summaries. The SR2SMP sequential cardiac auscultation method reduces the absolute amount of material to be memorized and divides the material into modules for memorization. The SR2SMP sequential cardiac auscultation method provides the student with even more familiarity and confidence when they eventually deal with real patients Due to the limited teaching hours, the results should be generalized with caution. Further large-scale and more in-depth studies are needed to verify these results
Keywords
Rui Zeng, Zhifang Zou, Ying Jiang, Fanghui Li, Fan Chen, Jing Zeng, Chuan Zuo