Mid-fidelity manikins improve first-year pharmacy students' confidence and accuracy with performing physical assessment

Introduction As clinical roles for pharmacists expand, effective physical assessment training for pharmacy students is essential. The study objective was to determine whether doctor of pharmacy students taught physical assessment using mid-fidelity manikins improved in confidence and accuracy. Long-term retention of skills was also measured. Methods First-year (P1) pharmacy students were enrolled in a case-based course over two semesters between August 2018 and May 2019. Manikins were incorporated into the fall semester course for students to perform physical assessment as part of the individual case workup process. Students completed surveys before and after the course to evaluate differences in their confidence and accuracy with detecting normal vs. abnormal vital signs. After 21 weeks of no manikin exposure, students were again surveyed and assessed to evaluate long-term retention of physical assessment skills. Results Fifty-six students were included. Student confidence in assessing heart rate, blood pressure (BP), and lung sounds improved significantly between pre-exposure and post-exposure (34%, 39%, and 71% improvement, respectively), and accuracy in assessing BP and lung sounds improved significantly between pre-exposure and post-exposure (28% and 23% improvement, respectively). Confidence and accuracy were maintained throughout the study including follow-up. Conclusions Early introduction of mid-fidelity manikins to P1 pharmacy students in a case-based, spaced learning strategy provided a successful approach to teach physical assessment skills.