中華心理衛生協會

Purpose: The goal of this study is to compare the effectiveness of the Simulated Patients/Clients training (SP/CsT) and Regular training (RT) methods for teaching suicide assessment interviews to novices in clinical and counseling psychology. The efficiency of the different training methods in fostering suicide assessment interview competence is also assessed. Methods: Twenty three first-year graduate students whose average age is 24 (5 males and 18 females), majoring in clinical or counseling psychology participated in a suicide assessment interview-training workshop. Students were randomly assigned to the SP/CsT or RT group. All students received pre- and post-training evaluations of their level of competency. The evaluations included a live interview examination with a simulated patient/ client and an easy written exam of suicide risk assessment. Results: After the workshop, the global performance scores of the SP/CsT and RT groups in the suicide assessment interviews significantly improved, but there was no difference between the two groups. However, the number of students who passed the post-training interview test (cutoff score of 70) in the SP/CsT group was statistically greater than in the RT group. Additionally, the post-training performance of the SP/CsT group on communication skills and relation-building skills was statistically better than the RT group. However, there was no improvement on the written exam score after training for either group. Conclusions: The results support that the two training methods differ in efficacy on achieving the training outcomes of professional knowledge, skills, and attitudes in a particular competency area, and that situated learning (SP/CsT) is more effective than the regular method in training student's communication and relation-building skills.