WIP 24 - Improving Communication of Neonatal Fellows during Periviable Prenatal Consultations using Standardized Patient Encounters

Poster Number: WIP 24
Publication Number: WIP 24.2408

Background: Counseling a family faced with the delivery of a periviable infant is a difficult and delicate task. These consultations typically occur when a family is in crisis with a physician that the family has never met. Neonatal fellows learn periviability counseling in 95% of programs nationwide by observing attending physicians. Currently, the ACGME lists interpersonal and communication skills as key competencies for neonatology fellows, and empiric studies show that skills such as communication and empathy can be taught. Standardized patients (SPs) and simulation are widely used in medical education to study and teach patient-physician communication. In this study, SPs will be used to evaluate communication skills and medical content during a periviable prenatal consultation.

Objective: The primary objective of this project is to determine whether a novel educational intervention will improve both medical content and communication skills during periviable prenatal consultations. The secondary objective is to determine whether fellows are more comfortable performing periviable prenatal consultations after this intervention and series of SP encounters.

Design/Methods: Fellows initially completed two SP cases simulating periviable prenatal consults. The SPs evaluated medical content of the conversation via a checklist by Humphrey 2019. Communication skills were evaluated based on a modified SEGUE checklist. Fellows completed a survey supplying demographic information and confidence ratings. Fellows then underwent an intervention regarding communication skills, designed using both social constructivism theory and backward design. A second set of two SP encounters were performed and evaluated in the same way as above. Final fellows are currently completing this step. Descriptive tables will be presented to summarize demographic and clinical characteristics, stratified by group and for the overall sample. Figures will be used to illustrate important relationships. Parametric and non-parametric statistical tests will be used to assess group differences.