Culture influences patients' beliefs and behaviours towards health, well-being and illness. There is a crucial need for pharmacy education to incorporate patient-centred, culturally sensitive knowledge, skills, and attitudes into the curriculum, including coursework, experiential learning, and assessment. OSCEs have been historically used to examine students' clinical ability via observation and feedback.
One aspect that could be developed more to help providers across the globe is the inclusion of cultural sensitivity competencies as part of the framework for assessment.
This project aims to jointly develop eight patient consultations
at OSCE stations integrating disease/medication knowledge content with intercultural components such as cultural concepts, patients, practitioners & healthcare systems.
Methodology
The project will provide students with unique experiential learning opportunities to work in international teams with their peers to develop and evaluate the framework of teaching and learning cultural competencies during a patient consultation.
Students will pilot OSCE station case scenarios, using criteria from the World Health Organization (WHO) about non-communicable diseases (NCD). Each team of students and patients will assess their peers on their outcomes and provide feedback.
Through pre and post-OSCE surveys and focus groups, the project team will assess the changes in students' perceptions of cultural competencies. In addition, students' perceptions, acquisition of knowledge and patient satisfaction will be used to evaluate educational intervention outcomes.
Outputs
The project will lead to the development of the following materials for implementation in various contexts by different institutions across the world:
- An OSCE stations development guide which incorporates:
- the case scenario
- training for simulated patients
- students' instruction
- assessment checklist & standard setting procedure.
The team will produce an evaluative report providing findings and recommendations for higher education providers across the globe to learn from upon completion of the project.
LEAD:
Gulf Medical University
PARTNERS:
University of Bradford and the University of the West Indies
Other Collaborative Enhancement Projects
QAA supports a number of projects every year, covering a range of topics and interest areas. Each is led by a QAA Member, working in collaboration with other members institutions. You can find more information on all projects, and access resources and outputs, on our website.