Evaluating the Anesthesiology Residents’ Performance, Using a Modified 360-degree Assessment Questionnaire in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

Abstract

Background: In the recent decades, worldwide attentions were increased in many countries for example North America and Europe to evaluate physician’s performance and become a necessity. The purpose of this study was to translate and determine the validity and reliability of the Persian version of the 360-degree assessment for anesthesiology residents. It consists of different domains to measure the general capabilities including communication and interpersonal skills, professionalism and residents’ clinical care skills. Methods: In this study, we used the questionnaire developed by Calgary University in Canada for the psychometric features. All second and third year residents who were actively engaged in anesthetic induction and were in close contact with their professors were chosen. The raters included five groups of faculty members, operation room staff (senior anesthetic technicians and recovery room nurses), residents’ colleagues, patients and residents themselves (self-assessment). Results: Cronbach's alpha coefficient for each questionnaire was over 0.80. Regarding the construct validity, the correlation between the items constituting each domain and the domain itself was over 0.40. We found a statistically significant difference between the colleagues and patients’ viewpoints. Considering clinical care, we also found a statistically significant difference between the faculty members and patients’ viewpoints. No statistically significant difference was found between the raters’ viewpoints. Conclusion: The present study showed that the Persian version of 360-degree scale is a practical and effective assessment tool with proper reliability and validity to measure the residents’ competence. It is suggested to be applied in other specialties to get more definite results.