Cognitive Changes in Clinical Clerkship Medical Students Who Underwent Online Enrichment in COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, teaching methods to clinical clerkship students (CCS) at our institution was switched mainly to online method. AIM: The purpose of this study was to determine the cognitive changes of online enrichment of CCS at the Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Udayana University during the COVID-19 pandemic. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a descriptive and observational study. We compared two sets of students: Class of 2016 (Group N) and class of 2015 (Group F). Students in group N (n = 99) experienced online enrichment in psychiatry during the 1st week of their enrollment, while those in Group F (n = 63) had offline enrichment in the same topic. They answered similar pre-and post-test, and we collected and analyzed the results. We used Fisher’s exact test to calculate the p value. RESULTS: The pre-test results were indifferent in both groups, 42 versus 57 in Group N and 27 versus 36 in Group F (p = 0.542). The post-test shows a marked improvement in terms of CCS managed to obtain the passing grade, 97 versus 2 in Group N and 55 versus 8 in Group F (p = 0.008). CONCLUSION: CCS who underwent online enrichment had a higher percentage of passing the test compared to those who underwent offline enrichment.