Evaluation of a virtual agent to train medical students conducting psychiatric interviews for diagnosing major depressive disorders
Journal of Affective Disorders. 2020-02-01; 263: 1-8
DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2019.11.117
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Dupuy L(1), Micoulaud-Franchi JA(2), Cassoudesalle H(3), Ballot O(4), Dehail P(2), Aouizerate B(2), Cuny E(2), de Sevin E(5), Philip P(2).
Author information:
(1)University of Bordeaux, USR 3413 SANPSY Addiction et Neuropsychiatrie, University of Bordeaux, Site Carreire – Zone Nord, Bat 3B, 3rd floor, Bordeaux Cedex 33076, France. Electronic address: .
(2)University of Bordeaux, USR 3413 SANPSY Addiction et Neuropsychiatrie, University of Bordeaux, Site Carreire – Zone Nord, Bat 3B, 3rd floor, Bordeaux Cedex 33076, France; University Hospital of Bordeaux, CHU Pellegrin – Tripode, Bordeaux Cedex 33076, France.
(3)University Hospital of Bordeaux, CHU Pellegrin – Tripode, Bordeaux Cedex 33076, France.
(4)University of Laval, Centre d’étude des troubles du sommeil, Québec, G1V 0A6, Canada.
(5)University of Bordeaux, USR 3413 SANPSY Addiction et Neuropsychiatrie, University of Bordeaux, Site Carreire – Zone Nord, Bat 3B, 3rd floor, Bordeaux Cedex 33076, France.
BACKGROUND: A psychiatric diagnosis involves the physician’s ability to create an empathic interaction with the patient in order to accurately extract semiology (i.e., clinical manifestations). Virtual patients (VPs) can be used to train these skills but need to be evaluated in terms of accuracy, and to be perceived positively by users.
METHODS: We recruited 35 medical students who interacted in a 35-min psychiatric interview with a VP simulating major depressive disorders. Semiology extraction, verbal and non-verbal empathy were measured objectively during the interaction. The students were then debriefed to collect their experience with the VP.
RESULTS: The VP w as able to simulate the conduction of a psychiatric interview realistically, and was effective to discriminate students depending on their psychiatric knowledge. Results suggest that students managed to keep an emotional distance during the interview and show the added value of emotion recognition software to measure empathy in psychiatry training. Students provided positive
feedback regarding pedagogic usefulness, realism and enjoyment in the interaction.
LIMITATIONS: Our sample was relatively small. As a first prototype, the measures taken by the VP would need improvement (subtler empathic questions, levels of difficulty). The face-tracking technique might induce errors in detecting non-verbal empathy.
CONCLUSION: This study is the first to simulate a realistic psychiatric interview and to measure both skills needed by future psychiatrists: semiology extraction and empathic communication. Results provide evidence that VPs are acceptable by medical students, and highlight their relevance to complement existing training and evaluation tools in the field of affective disorders.