The analysis of self and tutor assessment in the skill of basic life support (BLS) and endotracheal intubation: focused on the discrepancy in assessment

Abstract

Introduction: This paper reports the results of a study of fourth year medical students that assessed whether assessments of basic life support (BLS) and intubation performance differ when assessed by the students themselves or by tutors. This information should be helpful for designing the contents of a complementary education core.

Methods: Tutor assessments and student-assessments were conducted using a checklist and a fivepoint rating scale, and then compared. For the two skill performance tests, Resusci(®) Anne SkillGuide™ and Laerdal(®) Airway Management Trainer (Laerdal, Norway) devices were used. The check-lists used to evaluate students were based on International Liasion Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) guidelines and Korean Emergency Airway Management Society (KEAMS) tutor guidelines.

Results: A total of 83 medical students participated in the study, intra-class correlation coefficient between tutor and student assessment were 0.542 (95% CI 0.371-0.678) in BLS and 0.693 (0.538-0.802). There were also no significant differences between self-assessments and tutor assessments based on the five-point. In BLS skill session, we found out that "maintenance of airway" and "palpating a carotid pulse" were the mostly missed parts. In the intubation skill, omitting the parts of 'securing the airway' while preparing for intubation, proper positioning of blade tip in the valleculae, and appropriate insertion of endotracheal tube were demonstrated.

Conclusion: We observed correlations between student self-assessments and tutor assessments for both BLS and intubation. Analyzing the discrepancies between self-assessment and tutor assessment will be helpful in focusing training on the steps that were omitted by students or during which students demonstrated incompetence.