Evidence map›Paper›PMID 28449302›Full record

ArticleBritish journal of clinical pharmacology2017

Prescribing Safety Assessment 2016: Delivery of a national prescribing assessment to 7343 UK final-year medical students.

Simon R J Maxwell, Jamie J Coleman, Lynne Bollington, Celia Taylor, David J Webb

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Article in British journal of clinical pharmacology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
40citing papers in PubMed, 3 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

40 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Pooled it
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Simon R J MaxwellClinical Pharmacology Unit, University of Edinburgh, Medical Education Centre, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, EH3 2XU, UK.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3032-7237
Jamie J ColemanSchool of Medicine, Institute of Clinical Sciences, College of Medical and Dental Sciences (CMDS), Medical School Building, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK.
Lynne BollingtonBritish Pharmacological Society, 16 Angel Gate, City Road, London, EC1V 2PT, UK.
Celia TaylorDepartment of Health Sciences, University of Warwick Medical School, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7526-0793
David J WebbClinical Pharmacology Unit, University of Edinburgh, Queen's Medical Research Institute, 47 Little France Crescent, Edinburgh, EH16 4TJ, UK.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

aimsNewly graduated doctors write a large proportion of prescriptions in UK hospitals but recent studies have shown that they frequently make prescribing errors. The prescribing safety assessment (PSA) has been developed as an assessment of competence in relation to prescribing and supervising the use of medicines. This report describes the delivery of the PSA to all UK final-year medical students in 2016 (PSA2016).

methodsThe PSA is a 2-hour online assessment comprising eight sections which cover various aspects of prescribing defined within the outcomes of undergraduate education identified by the UK General Medical Council. Students sat one of four PSA 'papers', which had been standard-set using a modified Angoff process.

resultsA total of 7343 final-year medical students in all 31 UK medical schools sat the PSA. The overall pass rate was 95% with the pass rates for the individual papers ranging from 93 to 97%. The PSA was re-sat by 261 students who had failed and 80% of those candidates passed. The internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) of the four papers ranged from 0.74 to 0.77 (standard error of measurement 4.13-4.24%). There was a statistically significant variation in performance between medical school cohorts (F = 32.6, P < 0.001) and a strongly positive correlation in performance for individual schools between PSA2015 and PSA2016 (r = 0.79, 95% CI 0.61-0.90; P < 0.01).

conclusionsPSA2016 demonstrated the feasibility of delivering a standardized national prescribing assessment online. The vast majority of UK final-year medical students were able to meet a prespecified standard of prescribing competence.

Indexed as

Drug PrescriptionsAcademic PerformanceClinical CompetenceEducational MeasurementEducation, Medical, UndergraduateFeasibility StudiesHumansMedication ErrorsSchools, MedicalStudents, MedicalUnited Kingdomassessmentdoctorerrormedication safetymedicinepharmacistprescribingundergraduate

Identifiers

PMID28449302
PMCPMC5595977

What OpenQuestion holds

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Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.