Teaching HIV management to pharmacy students: Taking the clinic to the classroom

Purpose: To assess the educational impact of lectures on antiretroviral use in multiple patient populations, along with correlating longitudinal HIV patient cases mimicking “clinic visits”, on fourth year pharmacy students.

Methods: In an eight week elective students received pre-taped HIV management lectures on; the treatment of the naïve population, opportunistic infections, perinatal transmission prevention, pediatric infections, post-exposure prevention guidelines and pre-exposure prophylaxis. Correlating longitudinal cases incorporating the same two “patients” were also assigned weekly. These cases required students to apply the lecture’s content throughout the course.  Case answers were discussed with a facilitator during class to assess potential recommendations.  At the end of these class sessions, students were required to write individual management recommendations in an assessment and plan format (problems, medications, monitoring & education). These recommendations were tracked weekly in “patient charts”. Final individual summative “transfer notes” were graded. A self- administered pre-post survey measured each student’s level of confidence with HIV management on a four point scale at the end of the course, in addition to standard content testing.

Results: A Wilcoxon-Signed Rank Test was conducted to evaluate the impact of these lectures and longitudinal patient case studies on students’ confidence in use of antiretroviral agents. The test revealed a statistically significant increase in students’ confidence levels, z= 24.57, p<.001, with an effect size (r=.85).  The median score on the confidence levels increased from the pre-survey (Median=1) to post-survey (Median=3)

Conclusion: Using longitudinal patient cases as a teaching method allowed students to recognize the impact of their pharmaceutical recommendation in a classroom setting.  In turn this provided them with a greater level of confidence that they could make patient specific recommendations for antiretroviral agents in multiple populations.