Cross-year peer tutoring on internal medicine wards: Effects on self-assessed clinical competencies–A group control design study

Figures & data

Table

Practice points

The PAL has become an established and well-accepted teaching method in medical education. A PAL programme on internal medicine wards with final year students as peer tutors is practicable. On-ward PAL leads to increased tutee self-confidence with respect to important clinical competencies. Further research is needed to confirm and clarify presented findings and to demonstrate the effectiveness of an on-ward PAL programme using objective performance measures.

Table 1.  Self-assessed competencies measured pre-/post-intervention: intervention group (IG; n = 88) and control group (CG; n = 80; scale ranges from 1 = low self-assessed competence to 6 = high self-assessed competence); means, standard deviation (SD), p-value of ANOVA

		Pre intervention		Post intervention
Session I–X: Learning goals	IG/CG	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	p
I: History taking/	IG	3.61	±1.01	4.34	±0.67	<0.905^b
	CG	3.32	±1.03	3.91	±0.73
Building relationships	IG	3.11	±1.21	3.87	±0.68	<0.018^a
with patients	CG	3.18	±1.00	3.51	±0.88
II: Physical	IG	3.04	±0.97	4.00	±0.53	<0.004^a
examinations	CG	2.92	±0.96	3.31	±0.91
III: Blood withdrawal/	IG	3.36	±1.17	3.94	±0.92	<0.314^b
	CG	3.43	±1.15	3.59	±1.26
Applying in-dwelling	IG	1.71	±1.63	2.96	±1.31	<0.314^b
catheters	CG	1.83	±1.63	2.49	±1.36
IV: Infusion/	IG	2.03	±1.48	2.93	±1.27	<0.002^a
	CG	2.28	±1.50	2.19	±1.58
Blood transfusion	IG	1.50	±1.50	2.73	±1.28	<0.003^a
	CG	1.35	±1.46	1.73	±1.46
V: Completing	IG	2.56	±1.47	3.48	±0.91	<0.001^a
patient files	CG	2.29	±1.46	2.12	±1.46
VI and VII: ECG writing	IG	1.86	±1.54	3.69	±1.08	<0.459^b
(2 sessions)	CG	1.85	±1.64	3.17	±1.33
VIII–X: Chart rounds	IG	2.18	±1.29	3.03	±0.91	<0.358^b
(3 sessions)	CG	2.12	±1.13	2.66	±0.94

^aPost hoc comparisons revealed significantly higher post-intervention scores for IG as compared to the CG, whereas the two groups did not differ pre-intervention.

^bBoth IG and CG improved, with no significant interaction effect.