How much is residents' distress detection performance during a clinical round related to their characteristics?
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to investigate residents' characteristics associated with their performance in detecting patients' distress (detection performance).


METHODS
Residents' detection performance was assessed in a clinical round. A mean detection performance score was calculated for each resident by comparing residents' rating of patients' distress (VAS) with patients' reported distress (HADS). Residents' characteristics include general (socio-demographic, professional and psychological), detection (self-efficacy, attitudes and outcome expectancies) and performance characteristics (communication skills (LaComm), psychological arousal (STAI) and physiological arousal (heart rate and blood pressure) in a highly emotional and complex simulated interview task).


RESULTS
Ninety-four residents and 442 inpatients were included. 30% of the variance in residents' detection performance was related to residents' performance characteristics: anxiety level (p=.040) and mean arterial blood pressure (p=.019) before the task; empathy (p=.027) and mean heart rate (p=.043) during the task; mean arterial blood pressure changes (p=.012) during the assessment procedure.


CONCLUSIONS
Residents' detection performance is partly related to their performance characteristics. Psychological and physiological arousals are key characteristics--beside empathic skills--that need to be considered in models designed to determine detection performance.


CONCLUSIONS
Future interventions designed to improve residents' detection performance should focus notably on their performance characteristics.
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Faculté des Sciences Psychologiques et de l'Éducation, Brussels, Belgium.
Julie
J
Meunier
Yves
Y
Libert
Isabelle
I
Merckaert
Nicole
N
Delvaux
Anne-Marie
AM
Etienne
Aurore
A
Liénard
Serge
S
Marchal
Christine
C
Reynaert
Jean-Louis
JL
Slachmuylder
Darius
D
Razavi
D000328:Adult; D001530:Belgium; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients / Q000523:psychology*; D007396:Internship and Residency; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires