title: Standardised clients as assessors in a veterinary communication OSCE: a reliability and validity study.
abstract: In human medicine, standardised patients (SP) have been shown to reliably and accurately assess learners' communication performance in high-stakes certification Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE), offering a feasible way to reduce the need for recruitment, time commitment and coordination of faculty assessors. In this study, we evaluated the use of standardised clients (SC) as a viable option for assessing veterinary students' communication performance. We designed a four-station, two-track communication skills OSCE. SC assessors used an adapted nine-item Liverpool Undergraduate Communication Assessment Scale (LUCAS). Faculty used a 21-item checklist derived from the Calgary-Cambridge Guide (CCG) and a five-point global rating scale. Participants were second year veterinary students (n=96). For the four stations, intrastation reliability (α) ranged from 0.63 to 0.82 for the LUCAS, and 0.73 to 0.87 for the CCG. The interstation reliability coefficients were 0.85 for the LUCAS and 0.89 for the CGG. The calculated Generalisability (G) coefficients were 0.62 for the LUCAS and 0.60 for the CGG. Supporting construct validity, SC and faculty assessors showed a significant correlation between the LUCAS and CCG total percent scores (r=0.45, P<0.001), and likewise between the LUCAS and global rating scores (r=0.49, P<0.001).Study results support that SC assessors offer a reliable and valid approach for assessing veterinary communication OSCE.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Sciences, Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, West Farm, PO Box 127, St. Kitts, West Indies.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Artemiou
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, 330 Hospital Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 4N1 Canada.
authors.forename: C L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, 330 Hospital Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 4N1 Canada.
authors.forename: K G
authors.initials: KG
authors.lastname: Hecker
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, 330 Hospital Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 4N1 Canada.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vallevand
authors.affiliation: International Graduate Medical Education, Viale Romagna 51, 20133 Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Violato
authors.affiliation: Department of Population Medicine, Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, ON N1G2C6 Canada;
authors.forename: J B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Coe
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003142:Communication; D004520:Education, Veterinary; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D016544:Patient Simulation; D012015:Reference Standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results