Can standardised patients reliably assess communication skills in asthma cases?

摘要

Context and setting According to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), trainees in the USA must attain effective interpersonal and communication skills prior to completing their residency programme. The ACGME also requires medical schools to establish competency-based assessment of these skills. The use of standardised patients (SPs) represents the ACGME's preferred method of carrying out such assessment. Although SPs have been used in medical education, it is unknown whether adolescent SPs are reliable in assessing residents' interpersonal and communication skills in asthma cases. Why the idea was necessary Child or adolescent SPs have been used increasingly in the assessment of residents' clinical skills. However, no prior studies have evaluated the reliability of adolescent SPs in assessing the interpersonal and communication skills of residents in cases of asthma. Several prior studies have raised the question of whether SPs can assess interpersonal and communication skills as reliably and validly as faculty members. Resolving this question is extremely important in view of increasing clinical demands on faculty time. Thus, we decided to examine adolescent SPs' reliability in assessing residents' interpersonal and communication skills in asthma.