[Suturing basic procedural skills training for medical students during COVID-19 pandemic]

The adoption of sanitary measures due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic hampered teaching and learning methods in medicine.

To communicate the results of a wound suture training workshop, based on the Basic Procedural Skills Training methodology and adapted to the pandemic context.

One hundred fourteen students were randomized in small groups due to sanitary measures and trained with a modification of the Basic Procedural Skills Training methodology. An informed consent was obtained from every student. The suturing skills were evaluated before and after the intervention with "The Objective Structured Assessment Of Technical Skills" (OSATS) instrument. The perception of the workshop and the implementation of the COVID-19 prevention measures were also evaluated.

The students showed a statistically significant improvement after the intervention. In the OSATS verification list, the average score increased from 4.5 to 8.6 (p < 0.01). In the OSATS global scale, the average score increased from 13.0 to 25.3 (p < 0.01). The perception of the workshop and the prevention measures were well evaluated.

Despite all the limitations of the pandemic context, we achieved a significant improvement after the intervention and a very good perception by the students.