The imperative of the child life profession in KSA in transforming the quality of pediatric healthcare.

Saudi Arabia has made substantial advancements in its pediatric healthcare infrastructure. However, substantial gaps persist in addressing hospitalized children's emotional safety, and psychosocial and developmental needs. Internationally, the child life profession has evolved over decades to specifically address these needs, through interventions such as therapeutic play, age-appropriate patient education, and family support. This article evaluates the imperative for integrating the child life profession into healthcare services in Saudi Arabia to transform the quality of pediatric healthcare. An analysis of the current landscape revealed gaps in pediatric psychosocial care. These gaps are listed as national priorities in the health transformation program aimed at improving healthcare quality and enhancing well-being. Integrating the child life profession can help achieve these objectives for children and families in Saudi Arabia. This article highlights the multifaceted benefits of the child life profession in improving patient experiences, healthcare delivery efficiency, pediatric healthcare quality, and the overall well-being of children and families. Strategies for phased implementation, involving healthcare institutions, academic partners, relevant non-profit partners, and policymakers, are proposed.

Cross-cultural challenges for assessing medical professionalism among clerkship physicians in a Middle Eastern country (Bahrain): feasibility and psychometric properties of multisource feedback.

BACKGROUND: We aimed to design, implement, and evaluate the feasibility and reliability of a multisource feedback (MSF) system to assess interns in their clerkship year in the Middle Eastern culture, the Kingdom of Bahrain. METHOD: The study was undertaken in the Bahrain Defense Force Hospital, a military teaching hospital in the Kingdom of Bahrain. A total of 21 interns (who represent the total population of the interns for the given year) were assessed in this study. All of the interns were rotating through our hospital during their year-long clerkship rotation. The study sample consisted of nine males and 12 females. Each participating intern was evaluated by three groups of raters, eight medical intern colleagues, eight senior medical colleagues, and eight coworkers from different departments. RESULTS: A total of 21 interns (nine males and 12 females) were assessed in this study. The total mean response rates were 62.3%. A factor analysis was conducted that found that the data on the questionnaire grouped into three factors that counted for 76.4% of the total variance. These three factors were labeled as professionalism, collaboration, and communication. Reliability analysis indicated that the full instrument scale had high internal consistency (Cronbach's α 0.98). The generalizability coefficients for the surveys were estimated to be 0.78. CONCLUSION: Based on our results and analysis, we conclude that the MSF tool we used on the interns rotating in their clerkship year within our Middle Eastern culture provides an effective method of evaluation because it offers a reliable, valid, and feasible process.

Is problem-based learning an ideal format for developing ethical decision skills?

Ethical decision making is a complex process, which involves the interaction of knowledge, skills, and attitude. To enhance the teaching and learning on ethics reasoning, multiple teaching strategies have to be applied. A medical ethical reasoning (MER) model served as a framework of the development of ethics reasoning and their suggested instructional strategies. Problem-based learning (PBL), being used to facilitate students' critical thinking, self-directed learning, collaboration, and communication skills, has been considered effective on ethics education, especially when incorporated with experiential experience. Unlike lecturing that mainly disseminates knowledge and activates the left brain, PBL encourages "whole-brain" learning. However, PBL has several disadvantages, such as its inefficiency, lack of adequately trained preceptors, and the in-depth, silo learning within a relatively small number of cases. Because each school tends to utilize PBL in different ways, either the curriculum designer or the learning strategy, it is important to maximize the advantages of a PBL session, PBL then becomes an ideal format for refining students' ethical decisions and behaviors.

Reliability and validity of an Arabic version of the revised two-factor study process questionnaire R-SPQ-2F.

OBJECTIVE: How students accomplish their learning and what they learn is an indicator of the quality of student learning. An insight into the learning approaches of a student could assist educators of the health profession in their planning for the first year of study. The aim of this study was to develop a reliable and valid Arabic version of the revised two-factor study process questionnaire. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The translation of the revised two-Factor Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) into Arabic was done by an established forward-backward translation procedure. The Arabic version was then distributed to high school graduates applying for a place in the medical program at King Fahad Medical City. A total of 83 students voluntarily completed the questionnaire. The internal consistency and construct validity of the Arabic version of the R-SPQ-2F were computed. RESULTS: The exploratory factor analysis revealed two components. The two factors were similar to the main scales described in the original English questionnaire. The main scales were the deep and surface approach. The items for the subscales (deep motive, deep strategy and surface motive, surface strategy) had a high internal consistency of more than 0.80. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study should provide a valid and reliable instrument for the evaluation of the study approaches of Arabic speaking students.

The ability of the pre-admission criteria to predict performance in a Saudi medical school.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the ability of preadmission criteria used in most health professional schools in Saudi Arabia to predict the in-program performance. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study was conducted at King Fahd Medical City, Faculty of Medicine, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia between July and September 2008. Four sets were used to examine the predictive power of preadmission variables. The variables are the academic abilities (high school grades), aptitude test, achievement test, and an interview. The criterion variables were the undergraduate grade point averages' (GPAs) of medical college students (n=193). The correlation between admission variables and the GPA was examined using Pearson's correlation coefficient and regression analyses. RESULTS: Inclusion of all 4 admission tools in a regression analysis as predictors of GPA performance revealed that only the achievement test was statistically predictive of the GPA. Approximately 6.5% of variance in the GPA can be accounted for by the current admission criteria. CONCLUSION: The current admission criteria provide some insight into the predicted future performance of students. The inclusion of other valid and reliable admissions tools, such as the multiple mini-interviews and the questionnaire for candidate's suitability to follow a problem-based learning curriculum, should be considered.