Nigerian dramatic arts students’ willingness to train as standardized patients

Standardized Patients(SPs) are valid and reliable substitutes for teaching and assessing clinical students in a wide range of clinical scenarios. They are trained to portray clinical case realistically and consistently, and simulate real clinical cases in a standardized manner. We investigated the willingness of undergraduate students of drama and theater art in a Nigerian University to serve as standardized patients and portray clinical scenarios, especially mental illness in comparison with other clinical conditions. Ninety-four undergraduate students of the Department of Dramatic Arts, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Nigeria completed a self-administered questionnaire, participated in a 15-minute introductory session (short talk and video) on the role of SPs in medical education and listened to three clinical vignettes on bronchial asthma, breaking bad news and psychotic disorder respectively. Respondents rated their level of comfort portraying each case on a scale of 0(not comfortable at all) to 10(very comfortable) and provided reason(s) for their responses. Their demographic characteristics, responses to the questionnaires and comforts ratings were summarized using descriptive statistics. Analysis of variance(ANOVA) was used to analyze the mean difference between levels of comfort perceived by respondents across the clinical cases. The mean(SD) age of respondents was 21.0(2.9) years, 57.5% were men, and mean(SD) time already spent as dramatic arts undergraduate translated to 3.75(2.6) years. Most(97%) had never heard of the term “Standardized Patient”, none of them could define the term. Most respondents (95.7%) expressed the highest level of comfort of 10 if they were to act as SPs for chronic asthma and breaking bad news. Respondents were more comfortable with portrayal of asthma (7.6(3.3)) and breaking bad news (6.9(3.5)) than portrayal of psychotic disorder (5.0(4.2)) (p < 0.0001). Reasons given for discomfort with psychotic disorder were that the case was complex, critical, emotionally uncomfortable and subject to fatigue. Nigerian dramatic art students comprise a potential resource and pool of SPs in Nigeria however, they expressed feelings of discomfort with simulating psychotic disorders as SPs. Their deployment should begin with uncomplicated and common disorders. Additional education and training to decrease discomfort may enable the portrayal of mental health cases as well.