Investigating the Attitude of Graduate Psychiatrists towards Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) and Conventional Clinical Interview Examination

OBJECTIVE In the present study, we investigated the attitude of psychiatrists who graduated in 2002-2009 towards Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) and conventional clinical interview examination (Individual Patient Assessment). METHOD We studied 134 psychiatrists graduated; half of whom were examined with conventional clinical interview and the others with OSCE. A questionnaire was prepared by a specialist workgroup to assess the participants' attitude towards the exams. The questionnaire was initially examined in a pilot study. The findings of the questionnaire were used to assess the graduates' attitude towards each examination, as well as to compare the examinations. RESULTS The OSCE group indicated a significantly more positive attitude compared to the conventional group (p = 0.03). Furthermore, the OSCE group believed the role of theoretical knowledge (p = 0.01) and pre-test practice (p = 0.03) to be significantly greater for success compared to the other group. The structure of OSCE was reported to be superior to conventional examination in terms of fairness and homogeneity (p = 0.004). First participation in exam (p = 0.04) and ultimate success in the exam (p = 0.009) were predictors of graduates' attitude. CONCLUSION Based on examinees 'attitudes, OSCE may be a more appropriate choice for graduation examinations of psychiatry compared to the conventional clinical interview examination.