• Plezbert JA

• Association of Chiropractic Colleges / congresses

Objective: The objective of this presentation is to share a web-based clinical psychology course design that has been successfully delivered for three trimesters. Course implementation, syllabus, web sites, resources, and suggested assessment tools will be presented with the goal of enhancing the core education of chiropractors by collegiate sharing of ideas, information, and personal experience.

Methods: Student surveys assessing content, quality, and satisfaction with the course were utilized with results completed for 3 trimesters. Specific resources in terms of choice of textbook and Internet sites were also assessed.

Results: Greater than 50% of students each trimester responded to the surveys and positively about the course content and method of instruction. Students also made a significant number of consistent personal comments about the positive and negative experiences of this course design particularly in the context of the value of clinical psychology to clinical practice. The resources utilized and using an interactive discussion board as a required task were the most meaningful experiences reported by the students.

Discussion: The mental and emotional aspects of a patient’s experience of illness are of utmost importance in a biopsychosocial paradigm approach to patient care. It is congruent with the patient as a person or patient centered paradigm approach to health care. Clinical psychology is one defined curriculum course that should address social, mental and emotional issues specifically addressing this paradigm. It would seem that a personal or in-person classroom approach would be more conducive to teaching the importance of clinical psychology to chiropractic interns simply by instructor presence and ability to respond to students directly in a classroom setting. However, preliminary evidence and experience suggests that it is possible to deliver an entirely web-based clinical psychology course that imparts factual information and a biopsychosocial appreciation for the value of clinical psychology in practice.

Conclusion: Clinical psychology and its importance to patient care can be taught successfully in the core chiropractic curriculum utilizing an entirely web-based course design. Student satisfaction for both core content and clinically relevant appreciation and application of course materials is not compromised by this method of course delivery.

This abstract is reproduced with the permission of the publisher.