The pandemic has necessitated the need to revise how we provided pediatric clinical time with a move to simulation used as clinical hours. However, all mental health ideally requires communication with a live person to achieve outcomes. This is particularly difficult to achieve in pediatrics.
For this scenario a hybrid standardized patient scenario was developed in collaboration with a local high school’s mental health club, using INACSL standards. The teen standardized patient was present on zoom, as the “face” of the manikin with the high fidelity manikin set up for physical assessment. This solved the problem of having a teen present during the times needed while not being able to have volunteers on campus.
This particular scenario included a15-year old patient who self identifies as non binary is on day one of their inpatient adolescent unit admission post intentional overdose.
The implementation of the scenario included 2 students as nurses, one student with a parent role and script with 2-3 observers. Evaluation of the scenario utilized expert peer review and the DASH survey for students. The survey results were 5-6 out of 6 in every element. Students found this to be one of the most valuable scenarios for the quarter.
Though this was presented in a pediatric undergraduate quarter, the method is transferable to adult or geriatric settings and may help to increase the availability of volunteers for mental health scenarios. Utilization of a human being for communication needs to be of high value for students in mental health scenarios, especially when clinical time is scarce.
Learning Objectives:
State how to design a hybrid mental health scenario.
State how inclusion of INASCL standards of scenario design and implementation benefits program evaluation of scenarios for clinical hours.
Develop a concept design for a mental health scenario for your program using a hybrid model.
