Background: Pharmacology as a specialty deals with drugs, therapies, and their application to clinical medicine. The traditional teaching approach has been through didactic lectures in medical colleges. Case-based learning (CBL) as a teaching-learning method is an inquiry-guided, conceptual, and application-based novel approach in medical education.
Aims and Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of CBL compared to conventional method among medical graduates and evaluate the perception of students regarding CBL in pharmacology.
Materials and Methods: After taking ethics committee approval (IEC/ASR APPROVAL/017/2019) and obtaining informed consent from 60 students randomly divided into two equal groups: Group 1 (CBL) and Group 2 (Conventional). Case scenarios in Type 2 diabetes mellitus and bronchial asthma, test questionnaires, and feedback forms on the perception of students for CBL were developed and validated by experts. Group 1 had CBL sessions while Group 2 had didactic lectures and was evaluated immediately after sessions and 4 weeks later. Student perceptions regarding CBL were collected and analyzed.
Results: In our study, Group 1 (CBL) had significantly higher scores (P < 0.001) as compared to Group 2 in knowledge-based questions as well as application-based questions. About 90% of the students had a positive perception of CBL and insisted on its implementation in the curriculum.
Conclusions: CBL is more effective than conventional teaching in certain topics of pharmacology. Retention of subject and concepts was better as compared to the conventional group.
Key words: Case-based Learning; Knowledge-based Question; Perception; Application-based Question
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