Medical students' clinical performance in general practice - Triangulating assessments from patients, teachers and students.
BACKGROUND
Formative assessment of medical students' clinical performance during general practice clerkship is necessary to learn consultation skills.


OBJECTIVE
Our aim was to triangulate feedback using patient questionnaires, written self-assessment and teachers' observation-based assessment, and to describe the content of this feedback.


METHODS
We developed StudentPEP, a 15-item version of EUROPEP, a tool for measuring patients' evaluation of quality in general practice. The teacher and student forms consisted of five StudentPEP-items and open-ended questions asking for approval and improvement needed on four aspects. Quantitative scores were analyzed statistically. Free-text comments were analyzed and categorized into 'specific and concrete' versus 'general and unspecific'.


RESULTS
One hundred seventy-three students returned data from 2643 consultations. Mean patients' scores for 15 items were 4.3-4.8 on a five-point Likert scale. Mean teacher scores were 4.4 on five items, while students' mean self-assessments were 3.6-3.8. In an analysis of 380 consultations, students were more specific and concrete in their self-evaluation compared with teachers (p < 0.01).


CONCLUSIONS
Patients scored students' performance high compared with students' self-assessments. Teachers' scores were in accordance with patients' scores. Teachers' written evaluations of students were often general. There is a potential for improving teachers' feedback in terms of more specific and concrete comments.
Braend
Anja Maria
AM
University of Oslo, Blindern, N-0318 Oslo, Norway.
Gran
Sarah Frandsen
SF
Frich
Jan C
JC
Lindbaek
Morten
M
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards*; D005180:Faculty, Medical; D005194:Family Practice; D005246:Feedback; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009664:Norway; D019370:Observation; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D013337:Students, Medical; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult