The Effect of Interactive Educational Workshops With or Without Standardized Patients on the Clinical Skills of Midwifery Students in Providing Sexual Health Counseling

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Insufficient skills among health personnel, including midwives, can lead to failure in evaluating and providing sexual health counseling services to clients. Thus, the purpose of this study was to compare the effect of 2 interactive educational workshops with or without standardized patients (SPs) on midwifery students' clinical skills in providing sexual health counseling at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran, in 2014 to 2015. RESEARCH METHODS In this randomized controlled trial, 62 midwifery students were selected through convenient sampling method and then randomly divided into 2 groups who received 1 of 2 interactive educational workshops, with or without SPs in 10-hour educational programs. The students' skills in providing sexual health counseling were evaluated before and 2 weeks after the education through an Objective Structured Clinical Examination composed of 5 stations using validated checklists. The data were then analyzed using the SPSS Software (Version 16) through descriptive statistics as well as independent t test, paired t test, Mann-Whitney U, χ, and Fisher exact tests. The level of significance was considered by P < 0.05. RESULTS There was no significant difference between the mean scores of students' clinical skills in providing sexual health counseling services in the group educated with or without SPs (22.4 ± 7.0 and 23.0 ± 9.4, P = 0.77). However, 2 weeks after the interventions, the mean scores were 75.8 ± 11.2 and 47.0 ± 8.9, respectively, meaning a significant difference between the study groups (P < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS Although both teaching methods could promote clinical skills among the midwifery students, the effect of interactive workshop with SPs was much significantly stronger.