Journal article
Development and Validation of a Family Meeting Assessment Tool (FMAT)
Journal of pain and symptom management, Vol.55(1), pp.89-93
01/2018
DOI: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2017.07.048
PMID: 28843457
Abstract
A cornerstone procedure in Palliative Medicine is to perform family meetings. Learning how to lead a family meeting is an important skill for physicians and others who care for patients with serious illnesses and their families. There is limited evidence on how to assess best practice behaviors during end-of-life family meetings.
Our aim was to develop and validate an observational tool to assess trainees' ability to lead a simulated end-of-life family meeting.
Building on evidence from published studies and accrediting agency guidelines, an expert panel at our institution developed the Family Meeting Assessment Tool. All fourth-year medical students (MS4) and eight geriatric and palliative medicine fellows (GPFs) were invited to participate in a Family Meeting Objective Structured Clinical Examination, where each trainee assumed the physician role leading a complex family meeting. Two evaluators observed and rated randomly chosen students' performances using the Family Meeting Assessment Tool during the examination. Inter-rater reliability was measured using percent agreement. Internal consistency was measured using Cronbach α.
A total of 141 trainees (MS4 = 133 and GPF = 8) and 26 interdisciplinary evaluators participated in the study. Internal reliability (Cronbach α) of the tool was 0.85. Number of trainees rated by two evaluators was 210 (MS4 = 202 and GPF = 8). Rater agreement was 84%. Composite scores, on average, were significantly higher for fellows than for medical students (P < 0.001).
Expert-based content, high inter-rater reliability, good internal consistency, and ability to predict educational level provided initial evidence for construct validity for this novel assessment tool.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Development and Validation of a Family Meeting Assessment Tool (FMAT)
- Creators
- Yuya Hagiwara - Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA. Electronic address: yuya-hagiwara@uiowa.eduJennifer Healy - Department of Medicine, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, USA; Geriatric Research Education Clinical Center, South Texas Veterans Health Care System, San Antonio, Texas, USAShuko Lee - Geriatric Research Education Clinical Center, South Texas Veterans Health Care System, San Antonio, Texas, USAJeanette Ross - Department of Medicine, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, USA; Geriatric Research Education Clinical Center, South Texas Veterans Health Care System, San Antonio, Texas, USADixie Fischer - Department of Medical Education, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USASandra Sanchez-Reilly - Department of Medicine, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, USA; Geriatric Research Education Clinical Center, South Texas Veterans Health Care System, San Antonio, Texas, USA
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of pain and symptom management, Vol.55(1), pp.89-93
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2017.07.048
- PMID
- 28843457
- NLM abbreviation
- J Pain Symptom Manage
- ISSN
- 0885-3924
- eISSN
- 1873-6513
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 01/2018
- Academic Unit
- General Internal Medicine; Internal Medicine
- Record Identifier
- 9984094340802771
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