Development and applications of the anaesthetists' non-technical skills behavioural marker system: protocol for a systematic review.

introductionThe high incidence of unsafe anaesthetic care leads to adverse events and increases the burden on patient safety. An important reason for unsafe anaesthesia care is the lack of non-technical skills (NTS), which are defined as personal cognitive, social or interpersonal skills, among anaesthetists. The anaesthetists' NTS (ANTS) behavioural marker system has been widely used to evaluate and improve anaesthetists' behavioural performance to ensure patient safety. This protocol describes a planned systematic review aiming to determine the validity and reliability of the ANTS behavioural marker system and its application as a tool for the training and assessment of ANTS and for improving patient safety. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This systematic review follows the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Protocol. Studies that applied the ANTS behavioural marker system in a meaningful way, including using the ANTS behavioural marker system to guide data collection, analysis, coding, measurement, and/or reporting, which have been published in peer-reviewed journals, will be eligible. A citation search strategy will be employed. We will search Scopus and Web of Science for publications from 2002 to May 2022, which cite the three original ANTS behavioural marker system publications by Fletcher ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethics approval is not required for this study. The findings will be disseminated primarily through peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42022297773.