Evaluation of an instrument to assess resident surgical entrustable professional activities (SEPAs)

The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and the validity of the new surgical entrustable professional activities (SEPAs) instruments.

A prospective evaluation of six procedure-specific SEPAs instruments derived from the validated OPRS evaluation tools was conducted in 2018. Each instrument includes an open-ended feedback item and a series of Likert-Scale rating items. Attending, resident and a constant 3rd surgeon-observer completed the same evaluation for the observed case within 3 days of each evaluated operation.

40 cases performed by 10 residents and 11 attending surgeons were observed and evaluated. The SEPAs instruments were supported by strong validity evidence. Factor analysis revealed three latent variables are consistent with the core construct of SEPAs instrument. Internal reliability was high with Cronbach's α ranging from 0.84 to 0.94 across the six procedures. Test-retest reliability varied from 0.74 to 0.93 in the study sample.

The SEPAs instruments are reliable and valid tools for assessment of crucial aspects of resident learning and surgical entrustable professional activities that lead to entrustment and eventually surgical autonomy.