It sounds like a good handover but can I trust it: the correlation between perceived quality and accuracy?

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Background Safe handover is crucial in healthcare and is taught in undergraduate and pre-vocational training curricula. It is now considered an Entrustable Professional Activity (EPA). Handover assessment tools have been developed but the correlation between the perceived quality of a handover and its accuracy has not been studied. Aims This paper aims to determine the correlation between the perceived quality and the accuracy and safety of handover. Methods This descriptive, quantitative study looked at medical students on long-term rural clinical placements who gave clinical handovers to supervisors. The supervisors scored the handovers using the Clinical Handover Assessment Tool (CHAT) and assessed the accuracy and safety of the handover, after seeing the patient. The correlation between handover scores, accuracy and safety was calculated using Cramer's V coefficient. Results 114 handovers from 25 students were assessed. The correlation coefficient for a global assessment of quality and accuracy was 0.585 and for safety was 0.583, considered large effects (>0.35). This also held using a checklist quality assessment but less strongly: 0.419, 0.363 respectively. Conclusion These findings suggest that handovers that sound 'good' are likely to be accurate: clinicians can 'trust their gut-feeling'. A high quality handover reflects more than the trainee'. clinical reasoning, communication and organisational skills: it suggests that they can provide accurate and safe handover. This supports the use of global assessments of handover as an important part of the multi-source feedback required for summative entrustment decision-making.