Simulation-based teaching of psychiatric interviewing to residents: A comparison of peer-to-peer and teacher role-play on confidence in clinical skills.

Objective: To compare the effects of two simulation-based teaching programs of psychiatric interviewing using two role-play modalities on first-year psychiatry residents' confidence in their psychiatric clinical skills.

Methods: The teaching program consisted of seven 2-hour sessions per month led by two psychiatrists and academic teachers. In the peer-to-peer role-play group, students played either the patient's or doctor's role, and case scenarios were proposed by the students; in the teacher role-play group, a teacher played the patient' role and case scenarios were written by teachers. Simulation debriefing was teacher-guided in both groups. Confidence was measured with the Confidence in Psychiatric Clinical Skills Questionnaire (CPCQ) before and after the teaching program.

Results: Both strategies induced a significant improvement in the CPCQ total score. However, the peer-to-peer role-play program induced a significantly larger improvement in the CPCQ total score.

Discussion: Compared to teacher role-play, peer-to-peer role-play may enable a better comprehension of the patient perspective, reduce performance anxiety during the simulated scenario, and provide a partly improvised scenario that is more transferable to real-life clinical experiences.

Conclusion: Teaching psychiatric interviewing using the peer-to-peer role-play approach enables greater improvement in confidence in clinical skills than teacher role-play.