The Effect of an End-of-Clerkship Review Session on NBME Psychiatry Subject Exam Scores

Abstract

Objective The NBME Psychiatry Subject Examination (PSE) is used throughout North America to test MS–III end-of-clerkship knowledge; yet, literature on PSE preparatory methods remains sparse. This study assesses the effect of a curriculum intervention on NBME PSE scores. Method An optional 1.5-hour review session and accompanying fill-in-the-blank handout was offered to 62 MS–III students 3 days before their exam. Students who did not attend the session were e-mailed the handout with completed answers. The primary outcome measure was a change in scores, with students in the previous year serving as the control group. Results The average raw PSE score of students offered the review session was 84.53, versus 77.15 for matched controls (p <0.0001). The effect size for the intervention was 0.89. Conclusion This study may suggest that offering a comprehensive review session to third-year medical students 3 days before their NBME PSE significantly improves their scores.

Impact of a structured review session on medical student psychiatry subject examination performance

“…Implementation of a mandatory end-of-clerkship review session was associated with improvements in mean scores on the PSE, particularly for students whose scores were in the lower range. While similar improvements have been suggested in the past 11 , this study reproduces these findings with a larger sample size, thereby allowing analysis of performance in different scoring ranges. This study also demonstrated a significant effect of the intervention despite higher baseline scores in this sample (mean baseline scaled score 85.3, compared to 77.2 in the previous study).…”

“…Prior studies have demonstrated a significant improvement with a series of eight resident-led tutorials 9 and with a complete curriculum overhaul with a goal of improving scores 10 . A single end-of-clerkship review session for the subject examination has also demonstrated an increase in scores, but this study was limited by a relatively small sample size, which limited the range of outcomes that could be effectively measured, and by potential selection bias, since attendance at the session was not mandatory 11 . We investigated the impact of a single review session with a larger sample size and with mandatory attendance.…”