The Efficacy of PBL Model in Pathology and Pathophysiology Teaching in China: A Meta-analysis

Purpose: To systematically evaluate the effect of PBL in Pathology and Pathophysiology teaching. Approach: CNKI, PubMed, WanFang Data, EMbase databases were electronically searched to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of PBL model used in pathology and pathophysiology teaching in China from the database that has been constructed by September 20, 2019. Two researchers from the same research department independently screened and extracted literature materials for studying the evaluation bias risk and conducted a Meta-analysis using RevMan5.3 software. Findings: A total of 45 RCTs were enrolled, including 7,739 subjects. The Meta-analysis results indicate that PBL model in pathology and pathophysiology teaching is superior to traditional teaching model (LBL) in terms of final examination score [MD=6.68, 95% CI(5.29,8.06), P<0.00001], case analysis score [MD=4.15, 95% CI (2.88,5.42), P<0.00001], increased learning interest [RR=1.46, 95%CI(1.28,1.66), P<0.00001], the ability to analyze and solve problems [RR=2.21, 95%CI(1.49,3.27), P<0.00001] and teamwork ability [RR=1.7, 95%CI(1.3,2.22), P<0.00001]. Insights: The research results shown that PBL model can improve the teaching effect of Pathology and Pathophysiology, which, however, needs to be further verified by more high quality researches due to the limitation of literature quality in this research.