DESIGN: A 13-station OSCE was designed and implemented in the 2007-2008 academic year as part of the assessment methods for a clinical pharmacy course. The broad competencies tested in the OSCE included: patient counseling and communication, clinical pharmacokinetics (CPK), identification and resolution of drug-related problems (DRPs), and literature evaluation/drug information provision.
ASSESSMENT: Immediately after all students completed the OSCE, a questionnaire containing items on the clarity of written instructions, difficulty of the tasks, perceived degree of learning gained and needed, and the suitability of the references or literature resources provided was administered. More than 70% of the students felt that a higher degree of learning was needed to accomplish the tasks at the 2 DRP stations and 2 CPK stations and the majority felt the written instructions provided at the phenytoin CPK station were difficult to understand. Although about 60% of the students rated OSCE as a difficult form of assessment, 75% said it should be used more and 81% perceived they learned a lot from it.
CONCLUSION: Although most students felt that the OSCE accurately assessed their skills, a majority felt the tasks required in some stations required a higher degree of learning than they had achieved. This may indicate deficiencies in the students' learning abilities, the course curriculum, or the OSCE station design. Future efforts should include providing clearer instructions at OSCE stations and balancing the complexity of the competencies assessed.
METHODOLOGY: This qualitative in-depth interview study was conducted in January 2010 with 30 university students from different faculties, i.e.:International Medical School (IMS), Faculty of Health and Life Sciences (FHLS), Faculty of Business Management and Professional Studies (FBMP) and Faculty of Information Sciences and Engineering (FISE) of the Management and Science University (MSU), Shah Alam, Malaysia. After consent was obtained from all participants, the interviewer wrote down the conversations during the interview sessions. The data obtained were classified into various categories and analyzed manually.
RESULTS: The majority of participants 25 (83%) had heard about cervical cancer, while 16 (53.3%) have never heard of HPV. Only five participants (17%) mentioned that HPV is the cause of cervical cancer. Ten participants (33.3%) did not know any causes. The majority 16 (53.3%) did not know the mode of HPV transmission. The majority of participants 22 (73.3%) mentioned that they had not been vaccinated against HPV. Out of 22, 16 (53.3%) agreed to be vaccinated in the future to protect themselves from cervical cancer and five (17%) participants mentioned they are not willing because of the uncertain safety of the available vaccines and their side effects.
CONCLUSION: This study showed relatively poor knowledge about HPV and its vaccines, pointing to urgency of educational campaigns aimed at students in the public and government universities to promote HPV vaccination among this highly eligible population.