[Docs'n Drugs--an E-learning program for medical students; feasibility and evaluation of the acceptance in student training in child and adolescent psychiatry at the University Hospital in Ulm].
OBJECTIVE
Increasingly widespread is the use of modern media such as E-learning in medical education. The Medical Faculty of the University of Ulm, being the Competence Center of E-learning, and the Competence Network in Medical Education in Baden-Württemberg have been developing a web based multimedia educational program since 1998.


METHODS
In 2004 a grant for modular teaching projects sponsored by the Medical School was obtained in order to incorporate cases from Child and Adolescent Psychiatry into the Docs'n Drugs E-learning Module. The objective was to explore the feasibility of adding psychiatric cases to an educational system that was primarily oriented towards somatic diseases and to then evaluate the acceptance of these child and adolescent psychiatric cases.


RESULTS
Once cases had been developed, this module was integrated into Docs'n Drugs as a one-and-a-half hour web-based seminar as part of a block practicum in child and adolescent psychiatry and subsequently evaluated. The evaluation included data from 69 participants between summer 2004 and spring 2006. Of the participating students, 80.8% had never used the E-learning platform together with a monitor in a seminar before. 44.9%, respectively 41%, of the students responded that psychiatric cases could be dealt with in a good or partially satisfying way with that system. This gives an overall positive acceptance of 86%.


CONCLUSIONS
Our evaluated feasibility trial with a child psychiatric module within an E-learning based teaching platform showed that knowledge not only of somatic cases but also of psychiatric cases can be imparted via E-learning. The integration into an existing curriculum is advisable in any case.
Weninger
Laura
L
Universitätsklinik für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie/Psychotherapie des Universitätsklinikums Ulm.
Keller
Ferdinand
F
Fegert
Jörg M
JM
Libal
Gerhard
G
D000293:Adolescent; D000296:Adolescent Psychiatry / Q000193:education*; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002648:Child; D002665:Child Psychiatry / Q000193:education*; D003194:Computer-Assisted Instruction / Q000639:trends*; D003479:Curriculum; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D017145:Models, Educational; D019212:Multimedia; D018794:Problem-Based Learning; D012984:Software; D014584:User-Computer Interface