| dc.description.abstract | Objective: At the time of this study, no known validated tool existed that was specifically developed to assess dietetic students’ clinical judgment during interprofessional simulations. To fill this gap, the author developed the Nutrition Care Process Evaluation Instrument to measure clinical judgment of dietetics students during interprofessional simulations at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Methods: Through a pilot study, the Nutrition Care Process Evaluation Instrument was tested to determine reliability when measuring simulation participants’ clinical judgment during three separate patient scenarios. Study subjects (n=16) were pooled from Dietetic Intern students who participated in interprofessional simulations as a requirement of the Dietetics and Nutrition 826 Medical Nutrition Therapy course. During the simulations, one rater completed the validated assessment tool, the Lasater Clinical Judgment Rubric, while two other raters completed the newly developed Nutrition Care Process Evaluation Instrument. Results: Matched by student and scenario, inter-rater reliability was determined using Cohen’s Kappa between raters who completed the Nutrition Care Process Evaluation Instrument. Exploratory analysis was also completed using Spearman’s rank-order correlation coefficient to determine the strength of association between raters using both the validated and new tool. Discussion: Reliability of the Nutrition Care Process Evaluation Instrument was not fully established, possibly due to the small sample size, vast differences in raters, issues with scheduling, and the subjective nature of the assessment. Additionally, little association was seen between scores provided on both tools, likely due to the differing contents of each. Further research is needed to fully determine the reliability and validity of the Nutrition Care Process Evaluation Instrument. | |
