Assessing simulated patients in an educational setting: the MaSP (Maastricht Assessment of Simulated Patients)

Context For more than two decades the Medical School in Maastricht, the Netherlands, has used simulated patients (SPs) to provide students with opportunities to practise their skills in communication and physical examination. In this educational setting a student meets a SP in a videotaped session. Feedback by the SP to the student at the end of the session is considered an important educational feature. We found no instruments to assess individual SP performance during those sessions. Objective To develop a valid, reliable and feasible instrument to evaluate the performance of SPs. Methods The content of the instrument was validated through interviews with students, teachers and experts who are involved with SPs. They were asked to indicate key features of good SP performance. Based on the interviews, a written checklist was developed to measure individual SP performance. The instrument was evaluated in a regular SP session at the medical school, involving 152 students and their teachers. Main Outcomes All interviewees considered the scale to be satisfactory and the instrument to be valid. The feasibility and reliability of the checklists were investigated using the data of 398 returned checklists. Cronbach's alpha was found to be 0.73. Generalizability analysis showed that 12 completed checklists were required to obtain a reliable assessment of one SP. Conclusions The Maastricht Assessment of Simulated Patients (MaSP) appears to be a valid, reliable and feasible tool to assess the performance of SPs in an educational setting.