Evaluation of the impact of undergraduate use of clinical skills laboratory on House-Officers’ (Medical Interns) skills in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Use of sophisticated technology should be complementary to clinical skills. A decline in these skills in both developed and developing  climes has been observed. The aim of this study therefore was to ascertain the opinion of newly qualified Medical Doctors (House Officers) on the impact  of the use of clinical skills laboratory during undergraduate medical training in Port Harcourt in the year 2021.

Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional  descriptive study was carried out among newly qualified Medical Doctors working in two Teaching Hospitals in Port Harcourt, using a self-administered  questionnaire; data was collated and analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0.

Results: The mean age of the  respondents was 27.94±3.05 years. The mean knowledge score of non-technical clinical skills was 30.28±2.27. The mean knowledge score of technical  clinical skills was 65.29 ± 3.56. Seventy-three (70.0%) respondents had clinical skills laboratory in their medical school, and 60 (66.7%) underwent some  formal training in clinical skills laboratory. While the first experience at clinical practice on patients was exciting for 60 (66.7%) respondents, it was full of  struggles/difficulty for 28 (31.1%) respondents.

Conclusion: Although majority of the respondents had above average scores for both technical and non- technical clinical skills, some deficiencies were observed in some technical clinical skills where the scores were comparatively low. Some interns had never  been exposed to clinical /simulator skills laboratory. We recommend the establishment of clinical skills/simulator laboratory as educational  resources in training institutions where this is not available.