Evaluation of Vital-sign Checks Physical Assessment Training Program in Showa Pharmaceutical University Both in a Fourth-year Students’ Pre-training for Clinical Pharmacy Practice and a Sixth-year Students’ Advanced Training Program

• Published in: Iryo Yakugaku (Japanese Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Care and Sciences) Vol. 40; no. 10; pp. 567 - 585
• Main Authors: Hirohara, Masayoshi, Hamamoto, Tomoyuki, Terata, Ayako, Chiba, Ryoko, Shibuya, Fuminori, Nakamura, Miki, Watanabe, Kazuhiro, Osawa, Tomoji, Toda, Jun, Kushida, Kazuki, Takano, Akihito, Kitajima, Junichi, Hagiwara, Yukihiko, Fukumori, Ryuji, Horiguchi, Yoshie, Hamashima, Hajime, Taguchi, Kyoji
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese; English
• Published: Japanese Society of Pharmaceutical Health Care and Sciences 10.10.2014
• Subjects: evaluation; physical assessment; simulator; training program; vital sign
• ISSN: 1346-342X; 1882-1499
• DOI: 10.5649/jjphcs.40.567

Showa Pharmaceutical University introduced the vital-sign checks and physical assessment (VP) training program, which focused mainly on grasping normal conditions, in pre-training for clinical pharmacy practice in the second semester of the fourth year in 2010. Next year, the same VP training program and the additional training program, which includes grasping abnormal conditions, and an exercise based on a scenario were provided to the sixth-year students who could not have taken the VP training program in their fourth year. A questionnaire survey was conducted to evaluate these training programs both in the fourth- and sixth-year students. Both year groups of the students showed a generally high satisfaction of the VP training program, and felt that the degree of achievement after the program also rose greatly in all training items. Although six-year students who had experienced VP in the practical training in their fifth year answered a higher degree of achievement before the VP training program than those who had not, there was almost no difference between the two groups after the program. These results indicate that the VP training program achieved sufficient educational effects, irrespective of the year of the students and the experience of VP. As pharmacists require clinical ability and skills to make suitable clinical judgments, in a school setting we are planning not only to improve the VP training program but also to develop scenarios based on real cases in various clinical settings.