Development of an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) for Practicing Substance Abuse Intervention Competencies: An Application in Social Work Education

The substance abuse skills OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) was developed by an interdisciplinary faculty team at New York University from 2001 to 2003. The aims of the project were to teach medical, nursing, and social work students screening and brief intervention skills, provide a practice opportunity and feedback to students on their ability to demonstrate substance abuse skills, and to expose students to interdisciplinary collaboration. After students were educated and participated in the OSCE, the mean score on their substance abuse knowledge questionnaires increased from 6.24 (SD = 1.522) at pretest to 8.06 (SD = 1.600) at post test (t (16) = −6.080, p <.002). According to the faculty observer performance checklists, students manifested the fifteen competencies on the checklist at an average rate of 79.0%. Students rated the overall experience of participating in the OSCE highly favorably, at 4.9 on a five-point scale. While the OSCE proved to be highly compatible with the teaching and practicing of substance abuse intervention skills, it is a tool that also has relevance and applicability for the practicing and assessing of many other social work skills, and can be a powerful addition to the ways in which the field approaches the challenge of assessing competence in more direct ways.