The use of patients in healthcare education is well established in an acute setting; however, Patients as Teachers (PAT) in a classroom only started in the 1960s [1,2]. The level of patient involvement in the classroom has since been increasing and now varies between being used for testimony, all the way to leading sessions where they can tell their story, stimulate reflection, and help students to problem solve [3]. Pharmacy education has traditionally been science-based, but is now more clinically driven by patient facing roles, as such the inclusion of the real-world context to the curriculum is of increasing importance. Increased classroom involvement of the patient as an “expert by experience” helps to address issues in textbook teaching of chronic illness and discrepancies between theory and real-life [1,4]. PAT sessions integrate students’ learning by contextualizing theory with real patients, a requirement for the training of pharmacy students in the United Kingdom [5]. The benefits of using PAT are well documented and typically show an increase in learner satisfaction, perceived relevance of learning, and communication skills [6]. PAT sessions also provide a safe environment to practice being a healthcare professional [7]. Feedback from patients is overwhelmingly positive, feeling that they belong in the students’ education, enjoying giving back to the community, and reporting benefits to their self-esteem and personal health. Patient concerns focus on anxiety about communicating their story, engaging, and educating the students [7]. These concerns are addressed with adequate patient selection and training; if done well, the patients become “colleagues in teaching” [4,6]. PAT sessions are utilized in the training of healthcare professionals and have been extensively reviewed, showing good evidence of short-term benefit to learning and satisfaction and facilitating deeper learning. They allow the application of knowledge by “showing how” and “doing”, rather than by a simple factual recall according to Miller’s pyramid [4,7,8]. However, the literature has focused on the training of physicians and nurses, with the impact of such sessions on pharmacy students less thoroughly explored [1].

The PAT sessions delivered at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) cover 10 areas: cardiovascular, central nervous system, endocrine, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, hearing, musculoskeletal, respiratory, sight, and skin. During the sessions, students spend time with different patients, practicing their clinical and communication skills, with elements that are teacher-led, patient-led, and jointly led by patients and teachers, and discussions. Similar PAT sessions are utilized at many UK pharmacy schools including the University of Sussex, Medway School of Pharmacy, and University College London.

The study aimed to evaluate the impact of PAT sessions on knowledge, communication skills, and participation of pharmacy students in the United Kingdom.

The key research questions of the study were as follows: First, do PAT sessions contextualize learning? Second, do PAT sessions have an impact on students’ knowledge, communication, and participation?

The study was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 as revised in 2008 and received ethical approval from the Health Ethics Review Panel of the University of Central Lancashire on January 6th, 2020 (approval no., HEALTH 0029). Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. All data were handled following the requirements of the Data Protection Act (2018) and/or the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 according to European Union law; therefore, data were anonymized and stripped of any identifiable references to the participants.

This was a single institute survey-based study.

In this study, first and second-year pharmacy students were invited to participate. These years were chosen as the sessions were comparable in delivery, allowing a combination of data. The 15 PAT sessions were delivered to first- and second-year students in term 1 (September–December 2019) and term 2 (January–April 2020) and are summarized in Table 1. Ethics approval was received at the beginning of term 2; therefore, the recruitment and the study were conducted in term 2 during the 2019–20 academic year.

Commensus (Community Engagement, Service User Support) is a service user, carer, patient, and public group based at the UCLan, which was set up in 2004 [9]. The group currently works to embed authentic public voices and experiences in the teaching and learning of current and future professionals from individual perspectives [10]. These volunteers are recruited through these organizations, by staff and students in practice, and from attendance at public engagement events, online marketing, and word of mouth. The volunteers provide their time freely and are only paid theirs out of pocket expenses. They are supported by dedicated and experienced facilitators who recruit, train, and support the volunteers, and offer guidance and advice to staff within the schools around this area.

The research instrument was a questionnaire previously used by Costello and Horne [6] in 2001 aiming at rating student’s satisfaction, perception of learning, and level of involvement. The questionnaire had 7 question items, which was a mix between a 5-point Likert scale and binary agree/disagree options. The questionnaire also gathered students’ comments on the PAT sessions. For our research, we added a demographic section (5 items) and four additional 5-point Likert scale items previously used in another project aimed at assessing the impact of PAT sessions on student’s contextualization of learning, communication, confidence, and enthusiasm [11]. Permission to use the questionnaire was received from the original publishers Elsevier. Following informed consent, students were invited to fill out an online questionnaire delivered through a web platform called Qualtrics available from https://www.qualtrics.com (Full questionnaire available in Dataset 1).

A post hoc power calculation was conducted using G*Power ver. 3.1.9.4 (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany; http://www.gpower.hhu.de/) [12], and Pearson’s chi-square was the statistical test used. There was a sample size of 68 students, the effect size (Cohen d) of 0.5, and an alpha error of 0.05, and the calculated power was 91% with a critical chi-square of 11.07 and 5 degrees of freedom.

Descriptive statistics were used for presenting the table using categorical variables. Data were presented as a range, mean, and standard deviation as suggested by Norman [13].

Cronbach’s α reliability coefficient normally ranges between 0 and 1. The closer Cronbach’s α coefficient is to 1.0, the greater the internal consistency of the items in the scale. Field suggested that the value of alpha depends on the number of items on the scale [14]. For this reason, as the number of items on the scale increases, alpha increases too. If the number of items on the scale is less than 10, alpha should be ≥0.5. There is a formula for the calculation of alpha, α=rk/{1+(k–1) r} where k is the number of items considered and r is the mean of the inter-item correlations the size of alpha is determined by both the number of items in the scale and the mean inter-item correlations. A general rule of thumb for internal consistency suggests that alpha >0.9, excellent; >0.8, good; >0.7, acceptable; and >0.6, questionable. It is important to note that while a high value for Cronbach’s α indicates good internal consistency of the items in the scale (reliability), it does not mean that the scale is unidimensional.

Some variables were dichotomized, polarizing the responses into negative and positive as suggested by Aires et al. [1]. “Strongly agree” and “agree” were grouped as positive, adopting a conservative approach; “unsure” was grouped with “disagree”, and “strongly disagree” as negative. The dichotomization process allowed the measurement of the odds ratio and the association between categorical variables with a binary option (2×2). We used the phi (φ) coefficient (or mean square contingency coefficient) to measure the association between two binary variables. Phi is measured similarly to Pearson’s correlation coefficient in its interpretation, represents the chi-square-based measure of association. The chi-square coefficient depends on the strength of the relationship and the sample size. Phi eliminates sample size by dividing chi-square by n, the sample size, and taking the square root. The values of the phi coefficient range between -1 (negative association) and +1 (positive association).

The text responses to the questions were examined, and preliminary codes were given; the search for patterns was developed, and a mind map constructed. Common themes were identified and grouped. Participants’ comments were grouped according to the themes.

The analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS ver. 26.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) and Microsoft Excel ver. 2016 (Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, USA). NVivo ver. 12 (QSR International, Melbourne, Australia) was used for the generation of the mind-map and thematic analysis. A P-value <0.05 was considered to indicate statistical significance.

The total number of students in years 1 and 2 was 228 (year 1=129; year 2=99). The number of students who participated in the study was 68, giving a response rate of 29.8%; 60.3% were female (P=0.090), and 66.2% were in the first year and 33.8% in the second (P<0.008). The percentage of female students in year 1 was 55.6 and in year two 69.6; the difference was not statistically significant (P=0.305) (Table 2).

The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed using Cronbach’s α which measures the internal consistency of the scale, and therefore, how closely related a set of items (questions) are as a group. The questions not related to the PAT activities, such as demographic, were excluded from the analysis. Cronbach’s α was assessed on 9 items; the value obtained (0.809) confirming a good internal consistency (Tables 3, 4).

Students were asked to rate their appreciation of the PAT sessions using a scale from 1 (least satisfactory) to 5 (most satisfactory). Over 38% (38.2%) rated 5, 4 (47.1%), 3 (10.3%), and 2 (4.4%). Students suggested that the most worthwhile aspects of PAT were the joint elements run by both teachers and patients (55.9%), followed by patient-led (17.6%), discussion (16.2%), and teacher-led (10.3%).

Student responses to statements: all the statements presented in Table 5 were very positive, suggesting that students learned from the sessions; most of the students (97.0%) learned a lot, an adequate amount or a great deal; and only 3.0% learned very little. The patient involvement helped the students to acquire a greater understanding of patient’s problems, and 89.7% would like to see more PAT sessions. The PAT sessions contributed to contextualize students’ learning, communication skills, confidence, and enthusiasm (participation) in 92.7% of the sample (30.9% strongly agree; 61.8% agree) (The full list of pros and cons from students comments can be found in Supplement 1).

Five questions were dichotomized for grouping the responses into positive and negative. The results presented in Tables 6 and 7 did not show statistically significant differences between gender and year of study. Nevertheless, both tables are showing a robust positive appreciation of the PAT sessions.

Students were invited to write comments regarding the PAT sessions. The PAT mind map is summarising the pros and cons perceived by students during the sessions (Fig. 1), which have been grouped into themes and described in detail in Supplement 1.

Data for this study was collected exclusively from years 1 and 2 pharmacy students over one term with the same patients for each session. This allows for a greater consistency that would not be possible over a longer time or with variation in patients and teachers; this does, however, mean that the data are less generalizable. A significant limitation of this study is the small sample size which means that it is difficult to draw strong conclusions.

The study has shown that PAT sessions are seen as valuable learning tools by pharmacy students, who perceived an improvement in their communication skills and confidence. Students also value them as a way to contextualize learning, taking it out of the classroom and integrating knowledge into practice.