摘要：Background: Variety of tools has been used to teach history-taking skills to novice learners. Standardized Patient (SP) is the gold standard for medical education. We hypothesized that the use of online simulation platforms CyberPatientTM (CP) is as effective as SP. Methods: In this prospective randomized controlled trial study, the educational effectiveness of CP was compared to SP in improving history taking skills. Twenty-two incoming students at University of British Columbia (UBC) were randomly divided in to two (SP and CP) groups. SP Group (n = 11) practiced their history taking skills with the standardized patients and CP Group (n = 11)—with CyberPatients. The content for both groups included 3 cases of GI pathology and the study time was 60 minutes. Assessment method included Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) before and after interventions. Data were analysed in a two-way between/within ANOVA and Wald test was used to deal with the violation of the ANOVA assumptions. Economic benefits were assessed as Cost-effectiveness (calculated as Cost/Effect Ratio) and Cost-Value Proposition (Cost-Vale Relationship). Results: Results of this study indicated that both groups had significant (SP group p = 0.006 and CP group p = 0.0001) improvement in the knowledge domain of history taking. The history taking knowledge variable in both groups manifested a significant main effect of time indicating that students did better after interventions, F (1, 15.1) = 10.5, p = 0.011. The groups performed at a similar level after intervention. Moreover, results show that the use of the CP is more cost-effective and has a better cost/value proposition for medical education. Conclusion: We conclude that CyberPatientTM is as effective as using standardized patients in delivery of practical knowledge for novice medical students, however, CyberPatientTM is more economically rewarding.
