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Evaluating communication with parents in paediatric patient encounters: a systematic review protocol
Olivier Cusson1, Justine Mercier2, Céline Catelin3
1Pediatrics, Hôpital Fleurimont, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada olivier.cusson@usherbrooke.ca.
Insights
This systematic review protocol outlines the identification of validated tools for assessing pediatric communication skills. It aims to improve how medical professionals communicate effectively with parents during difficult encounters.
Area of Science:
- Medical Education
- Communication Skills Assessment
- Pediatric Healthcare
Background:
- Effective communication is crucial for medical residents, especially during difficult patient encounters.
- Existing tools for measuring communication quality often lack rigorous development and validation processes.
- There is a need for validated instruments to assess communication effectiveness in pediatric settings.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically review and identify validated tools for measuring communication skills or effectiveness with parents in pediatric settings.
- To include tools applicable to general pediatric communication and specifically difficult patient encounters.
- To provide a foundation for selecting appropriate measurement instruments in medical education.
Main Methods:
- Systematic review following COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines.
- Inclusion of studies on the development and/or validation of communication assessment tools for pediatric encounters.
- Exclusion of studies on telemedicine communication or tools used for outcomes other than validation.
- Data extraction and risk of bias assessment using the COSMIN checklist by two independent reviewers.
- Narrative synthesis of study characteristics, tool development/validation, and psychometric properties; quantitative analysis if data permit.
Main Results:
- This section will present the findings of the systematic review once conducted.
- It will detail the identified validated tools, their development and validation processes, and their psychometric properties.
- The results will inform the selection of reliable instruments for assessing physician-parent communication in pediatrics.
Conclusions:
- This systematic review will identify validated instruments for assessing communication skills in pediatric settings.
- The findings will support the development and implementation of effective communication training for medical residents.
- Ultimately, this research aims to enhance the quality of patient-physician communication in pediatric care.
Introduction:
Breaking bad news and dealing with difficult patient encounters is a skill that medical residents must learn during their curriculum. Many different tools are available to measure communication quality, but their development and validation processes are often missing. In this paper, we present the protocol of a systematic review aiming to identify the validated tools for measuring communication skills or communication effectiveness with parents in a paediatrics setting in general, including for difficult patient encounters.
Methods And Analysis:
We will conduct our systematic review in accordance with the methodology suggested by COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) and will report this paper following the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses. We will include the studies in which authors developed and/or validated tools for assessing the quality of communication with families by residents and/or physicians during patient encounters in paediatric settings. Studies assessing communication in telemedicine and studies that use the tool to measure a different outcome than its validation will be excluded. Our search strategy will be developed by a scientific librarian and validated using the Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategy (PRESS) tool. Two reviewers will independently screen the studies for selection, extract data of the ones included and assess their level of risk of bias using the COSMIN Risk of Bias checklist. We will perform a narrative synthesis on the study selection process, the characteristics of studies and study population, the characteristics of tools identified, their process of development and/or validation and their psychometric properties. If sufficient data are available, we will do quantitative analyses for each psychometric property.
Ethics And Dissemination:
Approval from an ethics committee is not required, as there is no primary data collection. Our findings will be disseminated through a peer-reviewed publication and at local, national and international conferences.
Prospero Registration Number:
CRD42020151642.
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