Open AccessBRIEF REPORT: Brief Instrument to Assess Geriatrics Knowledge of Surgical and Medical Subspecialty House Officers
Author(s) -
Williams Brent C.,
Fitzgerald James T.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of general internal medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.746
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 1525-1497
pISSN - 0884-8734
DOI - 10.1111/j.1525-1497.2006.00433.x
Subject(s) - geriatrics , medicine , subspecialty , graduate medical education , test (biology) , cronbach's alpha , curriculum , certification , house staff , medical education , family medicine , medline , psychometrics , accreditation , psychology , psychiatry , paleontology , clinical psychology , pedagogy , political science , law , biology
PROBLEM: Initiatives are underway to increase geriatrics training in nonprimary care disciplines. However, no validated instrument exists to measure geriatrics knowledge of house officers in surgical specialties and medical subspecialties. METHODS: A 23‐item multiple‐choice test emphasizing inpatient care and common geriatric syndromes was developed through expert panels and pilot testing, and administered to 305 residents and fellows at 4 institutions in surgical disciplines (25% of respondents), emergency medicine (29%), medicine subspecialties (19%), internal medicine (12%), and other disciplines (15%). RESULTS: Three items decreased internal reliability. The remaining 20 items covered 17 topic areas. Residents averaged 62% correct on the test. Internal consistency was appropriate (Cronbach's α coefficient=0.60). Validity was supported by the use of expert panels to develop content, and by overall differences in scores by level of training ( P <.0001) and graded improvement in test performance, with 58%, 63%, 62%, and 69% correct responses among HO1, HO2, HO3, and HO4s, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This reliable, valid measure of clinical geriatrics knowledge can be used by a wide variety of surgical and medical graduate medical education programs to guide curriculum reform or evaluate program performance to meet certification requirements. The instrument is now available on the web.