Reliability of Standardized Patients Used in a Communication Study for International Nurses in the United States

Authors

Anne L. Bolstad, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Yu Xu, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Jay J. Shen, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Miriam Torpey, Spring Valley Hospital Medical CenterFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-2012

Publication Title

Nursing and Health Sciences

Volume

14

Issue

1

First page number:

67

Last page number:

73

Abstract

As an evaluation method, standardized patients have a long history in medical education and research yet are less established in nursing. This paper explores the reliability of using standardized patients as the evaluative method in a communication competence pilot study with international nurses. Standardized patients and second raters scored the same encounters. We examined the scores by intraclass correlation coefficients. Anecdotal comments by the two types of raters were assessed qualitatively to highlight similarities and areas of difference between them. The results of reliability analysis for standardized patients scores for the composite variables of Establishing Communicative Rapport, Therapeutic Communication, Non-Verbal Communication, and Overall Satisfaction ranged from 0.755 (P < 0.01) to 0.42 (P = 0.09). In this study, the results showed standardized patient evaluation has moderate to substantial reliability when compared to second raters of the same set of clinical encounters. This is similar to the reliability established over many decades of medical research. Greater use of this dynamic and interactive technique may be beneficial to nursing education and research.

Keywords

Communication in nursing; International nurse; Intraclass correlation; Nurse and patient; Nursing – Study and teaching; Reliability; Research – Methodology; Standardized patient; Transcultural nursing

Disciplines

Interpersonal and Small Group Communication | Nursing

Language

English

Permissions

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Repository Citation

Bolstad, A. L., Xu, Y., Shen, J. J., Torpey, M. (2012). Reliability of Standardized Patients Used in a Communication Study for International Nurses in the United States. Nursing and Health Sciences, 14(1), 67-73.