Development of a team performance scale to assess undergraduate health professionals.

PURPOSE: Interprofessional simulation-based team training is strongly endorsed as a potential solution for improving teamwork in health care delivery. Unfortunately, there are few teamwork evaluation instruments. The present study developed and tested the psychometric characteristics of the newly developed KidSIM Team Performance Scale checklist.

METHOD: A quasi-experimental research design engaging a convenience sample of 196 undergraduate medical, nursing, and respiratory therapy students was completed in the 2010-2011 academic year. Multidisciplinary student teams participated in a simulation-based curriculum that included the completion of two acute illness management scenarios, resulting in 282 independent reviews by evaluators from medicine, nursing, and respiratory therapy. The authors investigated the underlying factors of the performance checklist and examined the performance scores of an experimental and a control team-training-curriculum group.

RESULTS: Participation in the supplemental team training curriculum was related to higher team performance scores (P < .001). All teams at Time 2 achieved higher scores than at Time 1 (P < .05). The reliability coefficient for the total performance scale was α = 0.90. Factor analysis supported a three-factor solution (accounting for 67.9% of the variance) with an emphasis on roles and responsibilities (five items) and communication (six items) subscale factors.

CONCLUSIONS: When simulation is used in acute illness management training, the KidSIM Team Performance Scale provides reliable, valid score interpretation of undergraduates' team process based on communication effectiveness and identification of roles and responsibilities. Implementation of a supplementary team training curriculum significantly enhances students' performance in multidisciplinary simulation-based scenarios at the undergraduate level.