Learning Through Experience: Influence of Formal and Informal Training on Medical Error Disclosure Skills in Residents.

BACKGROUND: Residents' attitudes toward error disclosure have improved over time. It is unclear whether this has been accompanied by improvements in disclosure skills.

OBJECTIVE: To measure the disclosure skills of internal medicine (IM), paediatrics, and orthopaedic surgery residents, and to explore resident perceptions of formal versus informal training in preparing them for disclosure in real-world practice.

METHODS: We assessed residents' error disclosure skills using a structured role play with a standardized patient in 2012-2013. We compared disclosure skills across programs using analysis of variance. We conducted a multiple linear regression, including data from a historical cohort of IM residents from 2005, to investigate the influence of predictor variables on performance: training program, cohort year, and prior disclosure training and experience. We conducted a qualitative descriptive analysis of data from semistructured interviews with residents to explore resident perceptions of formal versus informal disclosure training.

RESULTS: In a comparison of disclosure skills for 49 residents, there was no difference in overall performance across specialties (4.1 to 4.4 of 5, P  = .19). In regression analysis, only the current cohort was significantly associated with skill: current residents performed better than a historical cohort of 42 IM residents ( P  < .001). Qualitative analysis identified the importance of both formal (workshops, morbidity and mortality rounds) and informal (role modeling, debriefing) activities in preparation for disclosure in real-world practice.

CONCLUSIONS: Residents across specialties have similar skills in disclosure of errors. Residents identified role modeling and a strong local patient safety culture as key facilitators for disclosure.