title: Training with virtual patients in transcultural psychiatry: do the learners actually learn?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The rapid increase in the number of patients with diverse ethnic backgrounds and previous exposure to severe mental trauma dictates the need for improvement in the quality of transcultural psychiatric health care through the development of relevant and effective training tools.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study aimed to evaluate the impact of training with a virtual patient on the learner's knowledge of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, clinical management, and basic communication skills.
  
  
  METHODS
  The authors constructed an interactive educational tool based on virtual patient methodology that portrayed a refugee with severe symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder and depression. A total of 32 resident psychiatrists tested the tool and completed a pre-interaction and post-interaction knowledge test, including skills, at the time and several weeks later.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All of the participants (N=32) completed the pre-interaction and post-interaction test, and 26 (81%) of them completed the online follow-up test. The mean pre-interaction score was 7.44 (male: 7.08, female: 7.65, no statistical significance). The mean post-interaction score was 8.47, which was significantly higher (P<.001) than the pre-interaction score (mean score 7.44). The mean score for the follow-up test several weeks later was 8.38, higher than the pre-interaction score by 0.69 points but not statistically significant.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that virtual patients can successfully facilitate the acquisition of core knowledge in the field of psychiatry, in addition to developing skills such as clinical reasoning, decision making, and history taking. Repeated training sessions with virtual patients are proposed in order to achieve sustainable educational effects.
authors.affiliation: Cultural Medicine Unit, Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics (LIME), Stockholm, Sweden. ioannis.pantziaras@ki.se.
authors.forename: Ioannis
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4610-2611
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Pantziaras
authors.forename: Uno
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3166-1640
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Fors
authors.forename: Solvig
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8073-5415
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ekblad
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005008:Ethnopsychology / Q000193:education* / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D008490:Medical Informatics; D008875:Middle Aged; D016544:Patient Simulation; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000628:therapy*; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: PTSD; education; medical informatics; mental health; patient simulation; transcultural psychiatry; virtual systems