Abstract

FELIX ROMERO, Violeta; ORTIZ GOMEZ, Dulce Karen; MORALES CHAINE, Silvia  and  URIARTE ROJO, Carolina. Standardized Simulated Case: Behavioral Assessment in Health Professionals in Addictions. Acta de investigación psicol [online]. 2021, vol.11, n.3, pp.87-98.  Epub Mar 14, 2022. ISSN 2007-4719.  https://doi.org/10.22201/fpsi.20074719e.2021.3.395.

The use of simulated cases has become an important strategy for skill assessment in health professional training, clinical psychology and research, promoting practice and feedback in a controlled environment, reducing potential ethical problems. The aim of the study was to develop and standardize a simulated case as strategy for the behavioral assessment of competencies in health professionals in addictions who implement brief interventions. Six confederates were trained in the application of the simulated case with a standardized script representative of a typical case of alcohol abuse, verbal instruction, modeling, role playing, and feedback in 32 trials. The confederates implemented the simulated case with eight health professionals in training in four stages of assessment and participants’ performance was assessed using a checklist. The results showed that the confederates reached and adherence level to the script higher than 80%, intra-observer reliability between 83% and 100% and inter-observer reliability between 76% and 100%. The simulated case was sensitive to identify the increase in health professional’s skills in four moments of their training in the areas of functional analysis (21%) and alternative behavior planning (29.6%). The usefulness of the simulated case strategy as a valid tool for training and evaluation of professional competencies is discussed.

Keywords : Simulated cases; Health professionals; Behavioral assessment; Implementation of interventions; Addictions.

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