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Several studies suggest the relevance of healthcare simulation to prepare future doctors to deliver bad news. A such, we designed a role-play workshop to train first-year residents enrolled in Lille University School of Medicine to break bad news. The objective of this work is to report on our experience of this training and to assess its educational value through its capacity to satisfy residents' expectations, to induce a feeling of ease towards bad news disclosure, and to change trainees' preconceptions regarding these situations. The training consisted of a 45-minute heuristic reflective activity, aimed at identifying residents' preconceptions regarding bad news disclosure, followed by 4 30-min role-plays in which they played the parts of the physician, the patient and/or their relatives. Trainees were asked to answer 2 questionnaires (pre- and post-training), exploring previous experiences, preconceived ideas regarding bad news disclosure and workshop satisfaction. Almost all residents felt very satisfied with the workshop, which they regarded as formative (91%) and not too stressful (89%). The majority felt "more capable" (53% vs. 83%) and "more comfortable" (27% vs. 62%) to deliver bad news, especially regarding "finding the right words" (12% vs. 22%). Trainees tended to overestimate their skills before the workshop and lowered their assessment of their performance after attending the training, especially when they played the role of a patient in the simulation. Healthcare role-play seems an interesting technique for training to breaking bad news. Placing residents in the role of patients or relatives is an active approach that encourages reflexivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aimed to evaluate the impact of an immersive simulation session on the experience of the beginning of residency. The interventional group consisted of newly recruited residents in 2019, who participated in the workshop presenting four emergency scenarios frequently encountered during night shifts; the control group comprised residents who had begun their internship in 2018, without having participated in the simulation workshop. The level of psychological stress and self-confidence were self-estimated in the simulation group before and immediately after the workshop. During the second semester of residency, stress, self-efficacy and anxiety were evaluated in both groups with the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), General Self-efficacy Scale (GSES), and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) scale. In the second semester 2020, the PSS, GSES and GAD-7 were 20.71 ± 8.15 and 22.44 ± 5.68 (P = 0.40); 26.88 ± 6.30 and 27.11 ± 3.95 (P = 0.87); 6.94 ± 5.25 and 8.89 ± 4.78 (P = 0.22) for the simulation (n = 17, 89.5% of participation) and control (n = 9, 75%) groups, respectively. In the simulation group, the level of self-confidence had significantly improved from 1.82 ± 0.95 before the session to 2.29 ± 1.16 after the session (P = 0.05). Interestingly, this improvement in self-confidence was significantly correlated with GAD-7 (P = 0.014) and PSS (P = 0.05), and tended to be correlated with GSES (P = 0.09). Our study showed a significant improvement in self-confidence between before and after the simulation session. Residents who experienced an improvement in self-confidence saw their stress and anxiety levels decrease during the second semester reevaluation, in favor of a prolonged benefit from the session. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]