An. Thomson, RELIABILITY OF CONSUMER ASSESSMENT OF COMMUNICATION-SKILLS IN A POSTGRADUATE FAMILY-PRACTICE EXAMINATION, Medical education, 28(2), 1994, pp. 146-150
Examinations of competence which may affect career prospects require m
easures which are of high reliability, and which can be demonstrated t
o be valid. In a New Zealand summative postgraduate examination of com
petence in family practice the doctor-patient communication skills of
candidates were assessed by non-medically trained nominees of communit
y organizations. The assessments were based on direct observation of t
he candidates' encounters with simulated patients. To estimate the rel
iability of the consumer examiner, after the examination the examiners
re-scored a random selection of videotaped candidate encounters. The
test-retest correlations of consumer scoring were demonstrated to be a
t a level consistent with adequate examination reliability (confidence
interval 0.59-0.98). Consumers may be valuable as a resource for the
training and assessment of the communication skills of medical practit
ioners.