Clinical trial NCT06376188: Improving Breaking Bad News in Pediatrics by Simulated Communication
Official title: Improving Breaking Bad News in Pediatrics by Simulated Communication: The Prospective Randomized Controlled SimCom Study
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Communication
End of Life
Pediatric ALL
Keywords: communication
pediatrics
palliative care
simulation
resuscitation
breaking bad news
Lead sponsor: Medical University of Vienna
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2024-04-19
Enrollment: 46
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 75
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: OTHER

Brief summary: Breaking bad news, especially a death notice, is an essential part of the medical profes-sional communication. Being inadequately trained in those skills this may result in un-pleasant psychosocial consequences for everyone involved.

This prospective, single-center, randomized controlled trial evaluated the delivery of a death notice to simulation parents out of the perspective of these parents (professional actors), the participants (students) and by video analysis. The simulation patient has prior unexpectedly died during a simulated resuscitation. The intervention group broke the bad news after receiving a short communication

Detailed description: Conversations about death and dying present discomfort for both healthcare professionals, patients and their families. These conversations, emotionally laden, pose lasting challenges and impact decision-making. Despite extensive medical training, physicians often lack adequate communication skills for such conversations, leading to frustration and distress. Delivering bad news, particularly in pediatrics, requires managing not only medical intricacies but also emotional impact. Communication skills, crucial for such scenarios, are typically developed over time through observation and practice, yet are often inadequately emphasized in medical training. Our study aimed to assess the impact of communication training on medical students delivering death notifications to simulation parents in pediatric simulation scenarios.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Medical students, enrolled at the Medical University of Vienna.
* Successful completion the mandatory basic life support training "Block 16" in the third year of medical training and
* Successful completion of the mandatory communication seminar "Ärztliche Gesprächsführung B" also in the third year of medical training.
* Obtained written informed consent.

Exclusion Criteria:

* quality of the obtained video recordings were unsatisfactory and not usable for analysis
* unmet inclusion criteria

Primary outcomes:
measure: score by simulation parents
timeFrame: up to 1 hour after the simulation
Secondary outcomes:
measure: score by participants
timeFrame: up to 1 hour after the simulation
measure: score of video analysis
timeFrame: through study completion, an average of 1 year
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Vienna
country: Austria
facility: Medical University of Vienna
Study officials:
affiliation: Medical University of Vienna
name: Jennifer Bettina Brandt, MD MSc
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Babu TA. Breaking bad news in the paediatric ICU: need for ethical practice. Indian J Med Ethics. 2013 Oct-Dec;10(4):278-9. doi: 10.20529/IJME.2013.085. No abstract available.
citation: Bittner-Fagan H, Davis J, Savoy M. Improving Patient Safety: Improving Communication. FP Essent. 2017 Dec;463:27-33.
citation: Brock KE, Tracewski M, Allen KE, Klick J, Petrillo T, Hebbar KB. Simulation-Based Palliative Care Communication for Pediatric Critical Care Fellows. Am J Hosp Palliat Care. 2019 Sep;36(9):820-830. doi: 10.1177/1049909119839983. Epub 2019 Apr 11.
citation: de Moura Villela EF, Bastos LK, de Almeida WS, Pereira AO, de Paula Rocha MS, de Oliveira FM, Bollela VR. Effects on Medical Students of Longitudinal Small-Group Learning about Breaking Bad News. Perm J. 2020;24:19.157. doi: 10.7812/TPP/19.157. Epub 2020 Feb 14.
citation: Chumpitazi CE, Rees CA, Chumpitazi BP, Hsu DC, Doughty CB, Lorin MI. Creation and Assessment of a Bad News Delivery Simulation Curriculum for Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellows. Cureus. 2016 May 1;8(5):e595. doi: 10.7759/cureus.595.