Development and implementation of Counselling Skills in MBBS students pertaining to Caregivers of Malnourished Children

Aim(s) and objective(s) of the study: To develop a counselling module for MBBS students pertaining to caregivers of a malnourished child and to assess the knowledge and counselling skill of students after teaching.

module for counselling skills pertaining to the caregivers of a malnourished child will be developed for phase II MBBS students which will be validated by senior faculty members, medical education experts and FAIMER fellows and will be achieved in the first year of project. Then the investigator will design a pre-test question for knowledge and simulated OSCE stations for skill assessment of students. From the Phase II, 25 MBBS students will be selected from those posted for clinical posting who will undergo pre-test & OSCE in simulated parent of a malnourished child for assessment. After assessment MBBS students will be taught about the developed counselling skills module. The total expected duration of teaching of the module will be around six hours. While the MBBS students will visit NRC during their clinical posting they will demonstrate the counselling skills on real caregivers of malnourished child. At the same time skills and knowledge of counselling will be assessed using

the CCS-R Scale (Lambie, Mullen, & Swank, & Blount 2014). Data obtained from both the pre and post test score of MBBS students will be collected and kept for record and compiled for analysis. The mean score of both pre & post class assessment will be calculated to see the change in skills of counselling of MBBS students. The phase II MBBS students of other batches of clinical posting will also be educated and trained about the module in same manner in subsequent classes. Operational definition of caregiver – A caregiver can be any person (Parents, Grandparents, caretaker, guardian, elder brother and sister) who will be accompanying the malnourished child.