Do standardised patients lose their confidence in primary medical care? Personal experiences of standardised patients with GPs

摘要

In September 2002 the focus group discussion was conducted with four of the six students who participated as standardised patients (SPs) in the initial research project described above.7 The SPs were non-professional actors, who were trained to play the role of a patient. Their role was to play a new patient to the practice who presented with a history and symptoms of an acute headache lasting for 3 days, unresponsive to analgesic selfmedication. Immediately after their visits to the GPs the SPs filled in a standardised list that consisted of 54 items, including topics of history taking and a broad spectrum of physical examination procedures used by GPs. The SPs were trained and continuously evaluated in using this list. The training and preparation of the SPs also included various measures to maintain internal validity and to ensure that a standardised presentation of the symptoms were given.9