Simulated Live Interpreter-Patient Encounters: Impact on Pharmacy Students' Communication Skills and Confidence

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Communication in Healthcare
• Pharmacy Practice

Background:

• Effective communication is crucial for patient safety and care quality, especially for patients with limited English proficiency.
• Utilizing medical interpreters is a key strategy to bridge language barriers in healthcare settings.
• Pharmacy students require training in best practices for working with medical interpreters.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of a skills-based laboratory simulation on pharmacy students' self-assessed skills and confidence.
• To assess students' proficiency in employing best practices for communication through a medical interpreter.
• To measure changes in competence and confidence following a simulated patient encounter.

Main Methods:

• A retrospective, single-institution study involving third-year Doctor of Pharmacy students.
• Students participated in a skills-based laboratory simulation including a lecture, pre-survey, simulated patient encounter with a live interpreter, and post-survey.
• Evaluations included self-assessment of skills and confidence using Likert scales, compared with facilitator evaluations.

Main Results:

• 353 third-year pharmacy students completed the simulation across three graduating classes.
• A statistically significant improvement was observed in students' self-assessed competency after the simulation.
• Students reported a statistically significant increase in self-assessed confidence in using medical interpreters post-simulation.

Conclusions:

• Simulated patient encounters with live interpreters effectively enhance pharmacy students' self-assessed confidence and competence.
• This training improves students' ability to utilize language interpreters appropriately in patient care scenarios.
• Skills-based simulations are valuable tools for teaching best practices in interpreter use.