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. 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. Methods: This is a descriptive, 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 first week of their enrollment, while those in group F (N=63) had offline enrichment in the same topic. They answered similar pretest and posttest and we collected and analyzed the results. We used Fisher’s exact test to calculate the p value. Results: The pretest results were indifferent in both groups, 42 vs. 57 in Group N and 27 vs. 36 in Group F (p=0.542). The posttest shows a marked improvement in terms of CCS managed to obtain the passing grade, 97 vs. 2 in Group N and 55 vs. 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.