Using Standardized Patients in Continuing Medical Education Courses on Proper Prescribing of Controlled Substances

ABSTRACT

Controlled prescription drug (CPD) abuse is an increasing threat to patient safety and health care providers (HCPs) are not adequately prepared nor do they routinely employ proper screening techniques. Using standardized patients (SPs) as an instructional strategy, the trained physicians on proper prescribing practices and SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment) in a continuing medical education (CME) course. The authors compared two physician cohorts receiving standard CME course (control) versus CME plus SP practice. They measured knowledge and attitudes in all participants and skills and perceived competence in the SP group only. Knowledge and attitudes improved significantly for both groups. Screening behaviors for CPD use also improved. Participants overestimated their performance but increased their use of SBIRT with practice. The SP comfort levels with physician's competence improved after 2 practice sessions. Standardized patients can be an effective teaching tool in CME courses. Impact on knowledge or attitudes did not increase significantly over controls.

KEYWORDS:

• Continuing medical education
• controlled prescription drugs
• proper prescribing practices
• Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT)
• standardized patient

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the support for funding via the Great Ideas for Vanderbilt Medical Education Grant program (GIVME Grant) within the Office for Teaching and Learning in Medicine (OTLM: Emil Petrusa, PhD, and John Shatzer, PhD); the Center for Experiential Learning (CELA: Lisa Rawn, Alan Johnstone, Sandra Davis-Carter, and all the trained SP) at Vanderbilt; and the Center for Professional Health (Diana Phillips). The authors acknowledge and appreciate Dr. Emil Petrusa for his mentoring and guidance throughout the project.