Learning from human cadaveric prosections: Examining anxiety in speech therapy students

Abstract

Human anatomy education often utilizes the essential practices of cadaver dissection and examination of prosected specimens. However, these exposures to human cadavers and confronting death can be stressful and anxiety-inducing for students. This study aims to understand the attitudes, reactions, fears, and states of anxiety that speech therapy students experience in the dissection room. To that end, a before-and-after cross-sectional analysis was conducted with speech therapy students undertaking a dissection course for the first time. An anonymous questionnaire was administered before and after the exercise to understand students' feelings and emotions. State-Trait Anxiety Inventory questionnaires (STAI-S and STAI-T) were used to evaluate anxiety levels. The results of the study revealed that baseline anxiety levels measured using the STAI-T remained stable and unchanged during the dissection room experience (P > 0.05). Levels of emotional anxiety measured using the STAI-S decreased, from 15.3 to 11.1 points (P < 0.05). In the initial phase of the study, before any contact with the dissection room environment, 17% of students experienced anxiety, and this rate remained unchanged by end of the session (P > 0.05). A total of 63.4% of students described having thoughts about life and death. After the session, 100% of students recommended the dissection exercise, giving it a mean score of 9.1/10 points. Anatomy is an important subject for students in the health sciences, and dissection and prosection exercises frequently involve a series of uncomfortable and stressful experiences. Experiences in the dissection room may challenge some students' emotional equilibria. However, students consider the exercise to be very useful in their education and recommend it. Anat Sci Educ 10: 487-494. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.

Anxiety levels among health sciences students during their first visit to the dissection room

“…Two anonymous questionnaires ("ad hoc", STAI) were carried out before and after the first practice. The "ad hoc" questionnaire assessed each student's feelings, emotions and satisfaction with this practice [15,17]. These questionnaires were completed by the students themselves so that they could be combined with a second questionnaire that was completed immediately after the practice.…”

“…Additionally, several questions about the degree of satisfaction with the class and its quality were also included [15,17,18].…”

“…However, we have not considered how conducting these practices routinely in universities affects anxiety levels among students, specifically at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM). The reactions and feelings witnessed in dissecting rooms have been studied in different countries and for different health sciences fields [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19], and researchers have examined anxiety associated with the dissection of the human body [20]. We also need to assess the kinds of reactions and feelings that dissection/prosection could cause before adding this activity to the new curricular design of the Human Anatomy courses in our health sciences programmes, especially in those programmes where these practices have not been standard, e.g., nursing, speech therapy, and occupational therapy.…”

The Effect of Content Delivery Style on Student Performance in Anatomy

“…F2F and online content were also supplemented with 3 hours of weekly F2F practical sessions so as to not leave students feeling isolated in their learning. Two hours were dedicated to students having access to prosected cadaveric specimens, anatomical models, skeletons, plastinated cross‐sections, and X‐rays (Nnodim, ; Criado‐Álvarez et al, ). The third hour of the practical session involved students completing further guided activities designed to consolidate their understanding of the anatomical content.…”

Correction of speech and autonomic disorders after the ischemic stroke

“…In a number of scientific issues was shown that at the differentiated studying of autonomic disorders depending on localization of the stroke, patients with right-sided process have vagotonic disturbances with depression of a tonus of veins, arterioles more often, and also with activation of a limbic system [2,9,10,13]. In patients with the stroke in the left hemisphere the simpaticotonia with increasing of peripheral resistance of vessels, a vascular tonus, difficulty of venous outflow was observed [6].…”