Identifying key components for an effective case report poster: an observational study.
BACKGROUND
Residents demonstrate scholarly activity by presenting posters at academic meetings. Although recommendations from national organizations are available, evidence identifying which components are most important is not.


OBJECTIVE
To develop and test an evaluation tool to measure the quality of case report posters and identify the specific components most in need of improvement.


METHODS
Faculty evaluators reviewed case report posters and provided on-site feedback to presenters at poster sessions of four annual academic general internal medicine meetings. A newly developed ten-item evaluation form measured poster quality for specific components of content, discussion, and format (5-point Likert scale, 1 = lowest, 5 = highest).


METHODS
Evaluation tool performance, including Cronbach alpha and inter-rater reliability, overall poster scores, differences across meetings and evaluators and specific components of the posters most in need of improvement.


RESULTS
Forty-five evaluators from 20 medical institutions reviewed 347 posters. Cronbach's alpha of the evaluation form was 0.84 and inter-rater reliability, Spearman's rho 0.49 (p < 0.001). The median score was 4.1 (Q1 -Q3, 3.7-4.6)(Q1 = 25th, Q3 = 75th percentile). The national meeting median score was higher than the regional meetings (4.4 vs, 4.0, P < 0.001). We found no difference in faculty scores. The following areas were identified as most needing improvement: clearly state learning objectives, tie conclusions to learning objectives, and use appropriate amount of words.


CONCLUSIONS
Our evaluation tool provides empirical data to guide trainees as they prepare posters for presentation which may improve poster quality and enhance their scholarly productivity.
Willett
Lisa L
LL
Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, BDB 339, 1530 3rd Avenue South, Birmingham, AL 35294-0012, USA. lwillett@uab.edu
Paranjape
Anuradha
A
Estrada
Carlos
C
D003162:Competency-Based Education; D003226:Congresses as Topic; D003625:Data Collection; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate / Q000592:standards; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000592:standards*; D005180:Faculty, Medical; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D011361:Professional Competence