title: Evaluation of four manikins as simulators for teaching airway management procedures specified in the Difficult Airway Society guidelines, and other advanced airway skills.
abstract: Ten volunteers evaluated the performance of four currently available manikins: Airway Management Trainer, Airway Trainer, Airsim and Bill 1 as simulators for the 16 procedures described in the Difficult Airway Society Guidelines (DAS techniques) and eight other advanced airway techniques (non-DAS techniques), by scoring and ranking each manikin and procedure. Manikin performance was unequal (p < 0.0001 for both SCORE and RANK data for both DAS and non-DAS techniques). Post hoc analysis ranked the manikins for DAS techniques as: 1st Laerdal, 2nd Trucorp, 3rd equal VBM and Ambu. For non-DAS techniques, the ranking was: 1st equal Laerdal and Trucorp, 3rd equal VBM and Ambu. The power to discriminate for individual procedures was considerably lower but for 15 of 16 DAS techniques and 6 of 8 non-DAS techniques, manikin performance differed significantly. Post hoc tests showed significant performance differences between individual manikins for 10 DAS procedures, with the Laerdal manikin performing best.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthesia, Royal United Hospital, Combe Park, Bath BA1 3NG, UK.
authors.forename: G M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Jordan
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Silsby
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bayley
authors.forename: T M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Cook
authors.lastname: Difficult Airway Society
mesh_terms: D000776:Anesthesiology / Q000193:education*; D002983:Clinical Competence; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007442:Intubation, Intratracheal / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D008348:Manikins; D016544:Patient Simulation; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D013664:Teaching Materials