Abstract
Objective. To explore the cost-effectiveness of including standardized patients (SP) in the didactic curriculum for application and assessment of students’ pharmacist-patient communication skills. Methods. Five role play/case study (RP/CS) activities from a communication skills curriculum were replaced with five SP encounters. Communication was assessed using a rubric. This study developed an economic model to examine the costs and effectiveness of replacing RP/CS events with SP events in knowledge-application and communication assessment. Costs consisted of SP hourly wages for training and delivery of SP events. Outcomes examined were the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) per student. Results. The ICER comparing SP to RP/CS was $100.93 higher per student on first-attempt pass rates and $9.04 per one-point increase in the mean score. Conclusion. SP was more effective and more costly than RP/CS. Further research into students’ willingness to pay needs to occur before determining if using SPs is cost-effective in teaching communication skills.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 6120 |
Pages (from-to) | 73-79 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | American journal of pharmaceutical education |
Volume | 81 |
Issue number | 10 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2017 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Communication
- Prescription medications
- Standardized patients
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Education
- General Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics