Situational Judgment Test in A Sample of Iraqi Doctors

Study RationaleHealth Authorities expect physicians to behave professionally with serious lapses in conduct that adversely impact the patients, the public and the profession. ObjectivesTo explore the behavior and attitude towards complex, real-life situations met in the workplace in a sample of Iraqi doctors .The question was, is there any difference in the score between rotator doctors and senior resident doctors? MethodsA cross sectional study conducted for rotators and senior residents selected randomly and the questionnaire was via face to face interview.. The questionnaire contains 10 Case Scenarios taken from the UK foundation program, medical school council 2012. Each question has eight choices, and only three choices must be answered. Each correct choice is given 4 marks and the maximum mark for each question is 12, the wrong answer does not cancel the correct answer. Analysis was done using SPSS 25.0 ResultsA sample of 125 individuals participated in this study in which 51% are males while 49% are females, and 48% of them are rotators and 52% are senior residents. The priority of patient care had the highest mean score of 7.26 out of 12 while "Communication skills" had a lower mean score of 3.74. Females tended to score higher in "Conflicts between professional and personal concerns" than males, with a mean score of 4.98 compared to 3.69.Rotators have a mean score of 57.6 out of 120 compared to 53.6 for senior residents (p = 0.048). ConclusionThis study tried to explore behavior and attitude toward complex and real time situations in work place. Mean score of conflicts between professional and personal concerns was higher for females. On the other hand regarding training level, there were two items significantly different, namely conflicts between personal and professional concerns and ensuring patient safety. Communication skills had low score for both genders and training level.