(193) Student eCase Use is Associated with Higher Scores in a Cardiovascular Therapeutics Course

Objective : To evaluate the impact of eCase use on student pharmacist performance in a cardiovascular therapeutics course.

Methods: Digital patient cases (eCases) on hypertension, venous thromboembolic events (VTE), and acute heart failure (AHF) were developed for use as optional content instruction along with mandatory course materials in 2020 and refined in 2022. eCases engage students with interactive, randomly generated patient cases. eCase use characteristics (user, attempts, and successful completion) were collected. Performance metrics were overall course, exam, and content-specific exam question scores. eCase use or non-use was compared across quartiles of performance for each metric. Mann-Whitney and chi-square tests were used for comparisons.

Results: A total of 329 (58.5%) students used an eCase. Average course and exam scores were similar between eCase users and non-users in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, eCase users had higher average course (83.6% [SD 8.1] vs. 79.7% [SD 9.0], p=.002) and final exam (75% [SD 11.9] vs. 67.7% [SD 12.5], p<.001) scores than non-users. When performance was stratified by quartiles, eCase use was greater among the highest performers on the final exam (Q4 70.3% vs. Q1 34.9%, p<.001) though it did not reach statistical significance for overall course scores (Q4 64.3% vs. Q1 45.2%, p=.079). AHF eCase users had greater odds of being top performers on AHF questions compared to non-users (OR 3.9, 95% CI: 1.7-8.7). Rates of hypertension and VTE eCase use were not higher among the top performers on hypertension and VTE exam items respectively.

Conclusions: Use of eCases, particularly the AHF eCase, was associated with better content-specific exam item scores that translated to exam performance.