title: Development and Validation of a Set of Palliative Medicine Entrustable Professional Activities: Findings from a Mixed Methods Study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) are routine tasks considered essential to a professional practice. An EPA can serve as a performance-based outcome that a clinical supervisor would progressively entrust a learner to perform.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Our aim was to identify, develop, and validate a set of EPAs for the palliative medicine discipline.
  
  
  METHODS
  The design was a sequential qualitative and quantitative mixed methods study. A working group was convened to develop a set of EPAs. Focus groups and surveys were used for validation purposes. Palliative medicine educators and content experts from across Canada participated in both the working group as well as the focus groups. Attendees of the 2014 Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians (CSPCP) annual conference completed surveys. A questionnaire was used to collect survey participant sociodemographic, clinical, and academic information along with ratings of the importance of the EPAs individually and collectively. Cronbach's alpha examined internal consistency of the set of EPAs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Focus group participants strongly endorsed the 12 EPAs. Virtually all survey participants rated the individual EPAs as being "fairly/very important" (range 94% to 100%). Of the participants, 97% agreed that residents able to perform the set of EPAs would be practicing palliative medicine and 87% indicated strong agreement that this collective set of EPAs captures activities that all palliative medicine physicians must be able to perform. A Cronbach's alpha of 0.841 confirmed good internal consistency.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Near uniform agreement from a national group of palliative medicine physicians provides strong validation for the set of 12 EPAs.
authors.affiliation: 1 Division of Palliative Care, University of Toronto , Ontario, Canada .
authors.forename: Jeff
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Myers
authors.affiliation: 2 Department of Family Medicine, University of Toronto , Ontario, Canada .
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Krueger
authors.affiliation: 2 Department of Family Medicine, University of Toronto , Ontario, Canada .
authors.forename: Fiona
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Webster
authors.affiliation: 1 Division of Palliative Care, University of Toronto , Ontario, Canada .
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Downar
authors.affiliation: 3 University of Calgary , Calgary, Alberta, Canada .
authors.forename: Leonie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Herx
authors.affiliation: 1 Division of Palliative Care, University of Toronto , Ontario, Canada .
authors.forename: Christa
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jeney
authors.affiliation: 4 University of Alberta , Edmonton, Alberta, Canada .
authors.forename: Doreen
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Oneschuk
authors.affiliation: 5 Queen's University , Kingston, Ontario, Canada .
authors.forename: Cori
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schroder
authors.affiliation: 1 Division of Palliative Care, University of Toronto , Ontario, Canada .
authors.forename: Giovanna
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sirianni
authors.affiliation: 1 Division of Palliative Care, University of Toronto , Ontario, Canada .
authors.forename: Dori
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Seccareccia
authors.affiliation: 6 University of Ottawa , Ottawa, Ontario, Canada .
authors.forename: Tara
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tucker
authors.affiliation: 7 McMaster University , Hamilton, Ontario, Canada .
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Taniguchi
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada; D003226:Congresses as Topic; D032921:Consensus; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D065126:Palliative Medicine / Q000592:standards*; D011364:Professional Practice / Q000592:standards*; D012107:Research Design; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires