Connecting the pieces: Exploring the use of jigsaw puzzles in medical education to teach psychiatric disorders.

Background: Puzzle-solving has been recognized as an effective game-based educational strategy for active learning and can be used to learn complex topics such as psychiatric disorders. This research was designed to investigate the benefits of this technique on the learning, memorization, and satisfaction of general medical students in the clinical rotation of the psychiatry department and the role of related demographic factors.

Materials and methods: Sixty-three medical students participated in this quasi-experimental study from January 2022 to February 2023. After completing a pre-test, the students engaged in three puzzle sets related to panic attacks, generalized anxiety, and social anxiety disorders based on the DSM-5 criteria. Following the completion of the puzzles, the students took a post-test and filled out a satisfaction questionnaire. Twenty days later, a follow-up test was conducted to assess knowledge retention. The data were then analyzed using SPSS-19 at a significance level of 0.05.

Results: The post-test and follow-up test average scores were significantly higher than the pre-test (P < 0.05), with a non-significant decrease in the follow-up (P = 0.13). Additionally, the participants reported a high level of satisfaction.

Conclusions: The puzzle-solving technique as an active strategy can have a very important role in the efficacy of the teaching-learning process, especially in complex subjects like psychiatry. The present study provides evidence that puzzle-solving training significantly improves the learning and memorization of psychiatric DSM criteria in medical students. The results of this study can be used to design a more active learning environment to improve learning outcomes in medical education.