Learning Diagnostic Skills Online (German: Diagnostik Skills Online Lernen)

Summary

Clinical psychologists give diagnoses to their patients everyday and these diagnoses determine if and how these patients will be treated. Misdiagnoses can have severely adverse effects. Therefore, teaching diagnostic skills to clinical psychologists is very important during their undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate training.

One major problem in teaching diagnostics is that there are too few opportunities to practice with real patients due to legal and ethical restrictions. The aim of the DiSkO-project is, therefore, the development and evaluation of a blended learning course to teach diagnostic skills to (future) clinical psychologists.

In order to make the diagnostic training more practical a series of video files of simulated diagnostic interviews will be presented in an online course. These video files will be divided in different segments and presented with questions and automatic feedback. In a second step, learners will make a transfer to a real face-to-face diagnostic situation with an actor simulating a patient.

The DiSkO- course will be evaluated in a randomized-controlled trial at three universities in Germany (Ruhr-University of Bochum, Philipps University of Marburg, University of Cologne). To test whether students are equally good in administering a diagnostic interview after taking the DiSkO-course compared to students who took part in a traditional face-to-face university course a noninferiority-analysis will be conducted. Furthermore, diagnostic knowledge and attitudes toward evidence-based assessment after taking part in DiSkO vs. the face-to-face course will be compared.

The investigators aim at disseminating the open source DiSkO-course to other universities or institutions of tertiary education in Germany with the aim of improving the diagnostic training for students, better prepare them for their clinical practice and thus improve patients' health care in Germany.

Conditions

• Diagnosis, Psychiatric

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

blended learning

The blended learning course consists of two parts. The first part is an online course with case studies and instructional videos providing basic clinical diagnostic knowledge and the ability to conduct structured clinical interviews. In the second part, learners get to discuss the course content with a teacher, practice their interviewing skills with other students and make a transfer to a real face-to-face diagnostic situation with an actor simulating a patient.

BEHAVIORAL

teaching format as usual

The teaching format as usual represents the usual teaching of clinical diagnostic knowledge and the ability to conduct structured clinical interviews. Also in this intervention students also have the opportunity to discuss the course content with a teacher, practice their interviewing skills with other students and conduct a structured interview with an actor simulating a patient.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Cologne

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Kaiserslautern-Landau

  collaborator OTHER

• Philipps Universität Marburg

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Ruhr University of Bochum

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Ruth E von Brachel, Dr. · Ruhr-University Bochum

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-04-12

Primary Completion

2022-02-14

Completion

2022-02-14

Countries

• Germany

Study Locations