Effects of visual art observation on technical skills in novice healthcare learners: A scoping review

Recently, health professional education uses visual art observation to promote various observation-related technical skills. This article maps the studies on such interventions, scrutinizes what they measured as observational skills, and discusses their effectiveness.

Following the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews, a scoping review was conducted. Publications from 2001 on were identified by searching four databases and by hand searching. The author screened each publication using the pre-designed eligibility criteria: participants were novice healthcare learners enrolled in visual art observation training; the study aimed to evaluate the effect of the intervention on technical skills related to observation; the skills were objectively measured. The author extracted relevant information from the included papers without additional inquiry into the study authors. The extracted information was illustrated in both a tabular and descriptive format.

3,157 publications were identified, of which 18 articles were included. Few studies had valid and reliable experiments. The relatively valid evidence is that the participants listed more elements or signs for artistic or medical images.

Sound evidence is lacking for all the technical skills intended to be fostered. Observation skills for artistic images have not been demonstrated to transfer to technical skills. Nor do the studies show that they promoted accurate diagnoses and reduced misdiagnoses. Additionally, the evidence on verbalizing skills is not isolated from the impact of discussions and is unclear regarding its transfer to actual communication. For the others, there are not enough valid studies on technical skills. This is true for studies that directly examine promoting accurate diagnosis or reducing misdiagnosis. Moreover, there may be promising alternatives to visual art observations for cultivating such technical skills, but no comparative studies were conducted.