Digital-Use/Efficiency Phenotypes Versus Professional Role in Explaining Perceived Digital Benefit in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care.

Abstract

Background and Objectives: We compared professional role with digital-use/efficiency phenotype as explanations of perceived digital benefit in anaesthesia and intensive care. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional survey data from 161 professionals were analysed. Latent class analysis used 12 indicators of technology/educational-resource use and perceived operational efficiency; four benefit items remained external outcomes. Although BIC favoured two classes, a three-class exploratory solution was retained using aBIC, entropy, bootstrap testing, class size and interpretability. Nested logistic models with seniority retained in every model, likelihood-ratio tests and Shapley partitioning of McFadden's pseudo-R² compared role and phenotype; pre-planned sensitivity analyses re-estimated the comparison under two- and four-class solutions, with classification-error (BCH) correction and with use-only indicators, and discrimination was internally validated by bootstrap. Descriptive decomposition and Rasch/DIF analyses were exploratory. Results: The three phenotypes (n = 83, 44 and 34; entropy of 0.815) crossed professional boundaries (Cramér's V = 0.439). Phenotype did not improve seniority-and-role models for broad benefit (likelihood ratio 2.4, p = 0.301) or high uncertainty (2.8, p = 0.248), whereas adding role to seniority-and-phenotype models improved fit (23.6 and 26.2; both p < 0.001); this pattern was unchanged across all sensitivity specifications. Role received 68.3% and 62.3% of the Shapley-partitioned pseudo-R², versus 11.9% and 11.4% for phenotype. Exploratory decompositions provided little evidence of an indirect association through adoption breadth or phenotype. Rasch analysis suggested patient safety was easiest and managerial benefit hardest to endorse; person separation reliability was 0.07, and DIF contrasts were descriptive. Conclusions: In this sample, professional role carried more explanatory information about perceived benefit than the exploratory phenotype, and this ranking was robust to class enumeration and classification-error correction. The phenotype findings remain exploratory, and cross-sectional associations do not establish causation.