Beyond the Classroom: An Observational Study to Assess Student Pharmacists' Confidence and Perception of a High-Fidelity Manikin Chemotherapy Infusion Reaction Simulation

Vaccination Training for Pharmacy Undergraduates as a Compulsory Part of the Curriculum?-A Multicentric Observation

In order to increase vaccination rates, the Government of Germany introduced vaccination against influenza and COVID-19 into the regular care administered by pharmacists. However, vaccination training is yet not integrated into the German pharmacy curriculum. Therefore, the Institute for Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacotherapy in Duesseldorf had developed an innovative vaccination course using high-fidelity simulation for students. To investigate the acceptance further, the course was carried out at three different German universities (Bonn, Duesseldorf, Greifswald). Students were asked to give their self-assessment before and after and satisfaction only after the training course. Responses from 33 participants from the University of Bonn, 42 from the University of Duesseldorf and 49 from the University of Greifswald were analyzed. Every participant at the respective universities showed a significant increase in their self-assessment and indicated a high level of satisfaction with the course. The results also did not differ significantly between the respective universities. Consequently, the results lead to the hypothesis that the satisfaction of pharmacy students with this kind of training using high-fidelity simulation is very high and attractive, and can be recommended for other German universities. The integration of such vaccination training into the German pharmacy curriculum might be a future step.

Impact of Simulation Manikins to Train Pharmacy Students in Nasal, Throat, and Oral Fluid Swab Collection

Introduction: A point-of-care testing (POCT) certificate was implemented in a required pharmacy skills-based course. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of manikins on student confidence in performing POCT swabs for infectious diseases. Innovation: Manikins were used to train second-year pharmacy students on nasal swabs, throat swabs, and oral fluid swabs. Student skills were assessed on manikins first, then on a peer. Proficiency was defined as a score of 90% or higher. Students completed a pre- and post-training survey regarding their confidence performing swabs. Student confidence was based on Likert style responses (i.e., 'Strongly Disagree' [score: 1], to 'Strongly Agree' [score: 5]) performing the swabs. Median change in confidence was calculated using quantile regression. Findings: All students (n=63) demonstrated proficiency in performing swabs. Median confidence for nasal, throat, and oral fluid swabs changed by 2.0 (95% CI: 1.5, 2.5), 2.0 (95% CI: 1.5, 2.5), and 2.0 (95%CI: 1.3, 2.7), respectively. The majority of students reported time spent practicing was adequate for the nasal (n=51, 81%), throat (n=51, 81%), and oral fluid swab (n=59, 94%). All participating students reported manikins to be moderately (n=17, 27%) or extremely (n=46, 73%) valuable, and all students rated their overall experience with manikins as positive (n=63, 100%). Student comments revealed manikins helped to visualize anatomy, practice skills without peer discomfort, and minimize risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that inclusion of practice on manikins increased student confidence in performing POCT for infectious diseases. In addition, the majority of students indicated that the use of manikins was valuable to their learning and reported feeling prepared to perform POCT in practice after using the manikins.