Virtual patients and undergraduate anaesthesia teaching

ing and rational prescribing of antibiotics, levels of infection remain high. Why the idea was necessary Most health care professionals know that hand washing and rational prescribing is needed to prevent C. difficile infections, but they are slow to change their practice. In view of this, we constructed a multimedia resource which shows patients and interdisciplinary staff at the centre of a major outbreak in the UK telling their stories and conveying the lessons they had learned. We felt that this real-life approach would be effective in educating professionals about this topic. What was done We built a multimedia, online educational resource which told the story of a major outbreak of C. difficile in the UK. We analysed free text feedback to the resource to look for evidence of its effectiveness. Evaluation of results and impact In the first 6 months after its launch, 1292 users completed the resource. Of those who completed the resource, 632 gave feedback. All the feedback was coded into themes by two independent raters and was discussed until consensus was achieved. A total of 395 users said the module was good or informative or useful. Many specifically stated that they planned to change their practice with regard to personal hygiene and indiscriminate use of antibiotics as a result of the resource. Many users said they planned to try to change the more general infection control measures at their institutions. Many users commented on the small changes to behaviour that they were now motivated to take, which they felt would make a large difference to clinical outcomes. A total of 56 users commented that they had found the patient testimonies and the advice from a range of interdisciplinary team members to be particularly useful. Many reported that they had found the patient testimonies moving and motivational in encouraging them to change their behaviour. In all, 55 users said they had learned little or nothing new from the resource. The most common reason for this was that users had hoped to hear something more factual on the science of C. difficile. A total of 25 users commented that the resource did not fulfil the needs of their specific discipline, for which the most common reason was that they worked in the community. Fifty users fed back that technical barriers had prevented them from using the resource in full. These included inadequate width of broadband, institutional firewalls and inadequate software or hardware in their home or workplace. The video was 35 minutes long; 24 users found this was too long, but 19 users felt it was of the right length. We received four pieces of feedback that could not be categorised and four pieces of incomprehensible feedback. It is impossible to know the thoughts of users who did not give feedback and we acknowledge that there may have been an element of responder bias as more satisfied users are more likely to give feedback.