Team interaction during surgery: a systematic review of communication coding schemes

Area of Science:

• Medical Communication
• Surgical Safety
• Human Factors in Medicine

Background:

• Communication problems are linked to surgical errors, necessitating a deeper understanding of team processes.
• Current methods for assessing team communication in surgery lack standardization, hindering comparative analysis.
• A systematic review was performed to analyze existing methods and create a unified coding scheme for operating room (OR) communication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review methods used for studying events in the operating room (OR).
• To develop a synthesized, standardized coding scheme for OR team communication.
• To enhance the consistency and comparability of research on surgical communication.

Main Methods:

• Conducted a systematic review of six electronic databases, supplemented by cross-referencing.
• Classified collected articles based on event type, environment, surgical task, team characteristics, data collection, and coding schemes.
• Synthesized communication event categories into a common coding scheme.

Main Results:

• 34 of 949 articles met inclusion criteria, with their methodologies summarized.
• A priori coding was employed in nine studies.
• The synthesized coding scheme comprises six dimensions: information flow, period, statement type, topic, communication breakdown, and its effects.

Conclusions:

• The developed coding scheme offers a standardized approach for analyzing OR communication.
• This standardized method can be utilized for a priori coding in future studies.
• It is particularly beneficial for comparative effectiveness research in surgical settings.