The effect of practice with the simulated patient on the professionalism attitudes of medical students: An intervention study

Introduction: Medical school education is effective in the professionalization development of students. In this study, it was aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of course training and to investigate the effect of interactions with simulated patients on the professional attitudes of medical students. Methods: The research is an intervention study designed in the pretest-posttest pattern. The sociodemographic questionnaire and Penn State College of Medicine (PSCOM) professionalism attitude scale were used as data collection tools. The scale was applied to the students three times: before the course (1), after the course (2) and after the simulated patient practice (3). Results: The mean age of the students was 21.40±2.07 years and 54.8% (n=148) were female. The PSCOM scale scores of the students were 154.11±10.91, 158.59±10.48, and 164.64±10.81 respectively for score 1, score 2 and score 3, and, there was a statistically significant increase in score (P<0.001). The scale dimension’s scores all increased after the course and simulated patient (SP) practice. The difference between scores 1, 2, and 3 is statistically significant. The score increased significantly for all dimensions after training and SP’ practices, and the difference between scores 1, 2, and 3 was found to be statistically significant (P<0.001 for all). The female students had significantly higher total scores of 1, 2, and 3 than the male students (P<0.001 for scores 1 and 2, P=0.005 for score 3). Conclusion: Training and simulated patient practices increase medical students’ professionalism scores. The highest score was determined after simulated patient applications.