Effectiveness and Acceptance of DOAP Session as a Teaching Method for Visual Assessment among Interns at a Tertiary Care Center in Eastern part of India

Background:Visual Assessment is a basic competency required by all medical graduates. The Graduate Medical Education Regulation Amendment 2019 by the Medical Council of India, envisages a competency based and outcome driven undergraduate curriculum. The primary objective of this study was to find out if the interns were competent in the skill of visual assessment. The second was to determine the effectiveness and acceptance of DOAP (Demonstration, Observation, Assistance & Performance) session as teaching-learning method. Methods:This was a prospective quasi experimental, observational study conducted at a tertiary care center in Eastern India between May 2019 to Nov 2019. After approval from IEC, 75 interns consented to take part in the study. All participants underwent a Pre-test to know their proficiency in the skill of visual assessment. An educational intervention was done using the DOAP session and a post-test was conducted at the end of their training. A feedback was collected from the interns regarding their perceptions on DOAP sessions. The two tailed Fisher’s Exact Test (Graph pad Prism 9) was used to compare the Pre-test and Post-test results. P value ≤ 0.001 was considered to be significant.Results:Pre-test performance on different components of visual assessment demonstrated that 21.3 % of interns could assess the distant vision satisfactorily and 24 % the near vision. More than 80 % could not assess the color vision, Visual fields and menace reflex satisfactorily. Post test results showed improvement in each component of visual assessment, color vision(P<0.0001), Distant vision(P<0.0001), Near vision(P<0.0001), Field of vision(P<0.0001) and menace reflex(P<0.0001) after the educational intervention. Feedback from the participants strongly favored the DOAP as an effective method of teaching and learning.Conclusion:Interns were found to be grossly lacking in basic skills of visual assessment. DOAP sessions as a teaching method for visual assessment was found to be effective and acceptable. Incorporation of this teaching method will help realize the goal of achieving competent medical graduates