Protocol for the ORaClES study: an online randomised controlled trial to improve clinical estimates of survival using a training resource for medical students.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Clinicians often struggle to recognise when palliative care patients are imminently dying (last 72 hours of life). A previous study identified the factors that expert palliative care doctors (with demonstrated prognostic skills) had used, to form a judgement about which patients were imminently dying. This protocol describes a study to evaluate whether an online training resource showing how experts weighted the importance of various symptoms and signs can teach medical students to formulate survival estimates for palliative care patients that are more similar to the experts' estimates.

Methods and analysis

This online double-blind randomised controlled trial will recruit at least 128 students in the penultimate or final year of medical school in the UK. Partici

SUBMITTER: Oostendorp L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6443051 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature