Abstract
AIM Determining treatment goals is an important part of the treatment decision-making process, but medical students are not trained in a structural way on how to define these goals. 'SMART' criteria are widely used in non-medical professions for determining goals and may improve treatment goal setting. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of implementation of SMART criteria on medical students' ability to set treatment goals and to analyze the effects on treatment choice and monitoring. METHODS We performed a prospective, randomized controlled minimal intervention study with one control and two intervention groups (WHO group and SMART group). Second year medical students had to complete a WHO six step treatment plan for four written case reports of patients with asthma. The treatment plans were assessed using a standard scoring sheet developed by a Delphi procedure among respiratory physicians from all eight university medical centres in the Netherlands. RESULTS A total of 251 second year medical students participated. The SMART group had significantly higher scores for setting treatment goals than the WHO and control groups (68.5% vs. 29.6% and 30.8%, respectively, both P
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 280-284 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | British journal of clinical pharmacology |
Volume | 82 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2016 |