Assessing skills in psychiatry. Experience and implementation of OSCE for medical students

Medical education has been changing, and the evaluation strategies that make it possible to address not only theoretical knowledge but also clinical skills. In Mental Health, these skills play a central role. The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is one of the evaluations that could assess clinical skills. This article describes the implementation and performance for the evaluation of undergraduate students since the OSCE's introduction in 2015.

An explanation of the implementation is made, and a description of the OSCEs carried out to undergraduate medical students in the second semester of mental health, using the databases of the final practical examinations during those years. The perception of mental health teachers is also described.

The mental health OSCE implemented in 2015-2, is developed in the Simulated Hospital of the University and has five stations (interview, mental examination, diagnosis, treatment and information to the family and ethics). Between 2016-2 and 2019-2, 486 students performed OSCE with an average score of 3.85 (scale 0-5). It was observed that the grade obtained when evaluating anxiety disorders was below average, that of affective disorders above average, while that of psychotic disorders was within the average. The professors highlight the versatility, the comprehensive objective evaluation of the practical and theoretical aspects, and the possibility of comparison between the different groups.

The OSCE is an examination that provides the possibility to evaluate the competences in psychiatry of medical students and allows the identification of the aspects to be improved in the teaching learning process.