Iranian Journal of Medical Education

Introduction: Postpartum depression is a common disorder among women. Therefore, proper and efficient training of healthcare providers for this disorder is of great importance. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of “lecture” and “simulated patient” teaching methods on teaching postpartum depression to healthcare providers.
Methods: This quasi -experimental study employed a pretest-posttest design with intervention and control groups and it was carried out in Shahin Shahr healthcare system in 2016. 80 subjects who met inclusion criteria were selected by census method from among 86 healthcare providers and divided randomly into two groups of 40. Postpartum depression was taught to the intervention group and the control group using the “simulated patient” and “lecture” methods respectively. Both groups were given a valid and reliable test before and after the intervention to measure their knowledge and performance. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent t-tests and paired t-test.
Results: In both groups, the posttest mean score was significantly higher than the pretest mean score (p<0.00001). Based on the survey questionnaire, 87% of the intervention group believed that the simulated patient was an appropriate teaching method and 85% preferred it to the lecture method.
Conclusion: The results showed that the simulated patient method in teaching postpartum depression had a greater effect on increase healthcare providers’ knowledge and performance than the lecture method and participants preferred this method to the lecture method.