Ultrasound-guided regional anaesthesia: educational intervention with psychometric screening

Title: Does targeted educational intervention based on psychometric screening improve ultrasound-guided regional anaesthesia performance?

Investigating team: Alwin Chuan (Liverpool Hospital, AUS), Gabriella Iohom (Cork University Hospital, IRE) , Kwesi Kwofie (Dalhousie University, CAN) , Ahtsham Niazi (Toronto Western Hospital, CAN), Reva Ramlogan MD, FRCPC (The Ottawa Hospital, CAN) on behalf of the Education in Regional Anaesthesia Collaboration (ERAC) group

Cork site co-investigators: George Shorten, Sandeep Miglani

Background: There is evidence in other complex medical procedures that visuospatial ability influences performance, with shorter times taken to complete procedures and reduction in errors.  Early identification of novices for which the USGRA task will be difficult to learn may allow training to be individualised, with educators able to target and allocate scarce training resources to novices who will benefit greatly from extra attention.

Objective: To determine if targeted UGRA training based on visuospatial ability in novices allows improvement in UGRA needle skills. The primary outcome is time taken to successfully complete the UGRA needle task. Secondary outcome is proficiency and efficiency, as assessed by blinded examiners using a validated global rating scale.

Preliminary results: Under examination

Current status: Data collection completed and collated in 3 out of the 5 centres

Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine

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