The development of a structured rating schedule (the BAS) to assess skills in breaking bad news
1999
Assessing Skills in Breaking Bad News
publication
Evidence: high
Author Information
Author(s): Miller S J, Hope T, Talbot D C
Primary Institution: University of Oxford
Hypothesis
There is a need for a reliable, practical, and valid structured rating schedule to assess skills in breaking bad news.
Conclusion
The BAS provides a reliable and consistent method for assessing skills in breaking bad news.
Supporting Evidence
- The internal consistency of the schedule was high with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.93.
- Agreement between raters using the schedule was moderate to good.
- The majority of the variation in scores was due to differences in skills demonstrated in the interviews.
- Agreement between raters not using the schedule was poor.
Takeaway
Doctors need to learn how to tell patients bad news better, and this study created a tool to help them do that.
Methodology
Video-taped recordings of simulated consultations were assessed by three raters using the schedule and compared to expert ratings.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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