Abstract
BackgroundMost assessments of the quality of postgraduate training are based on anonymised questionnaires of trainees. We report a comprehensive assessment of the quality of training at a large postgraduate psychiatry training institute using non-anonymised face-to-face interviews with trainees and their trainers.MethodsTwo consultant psychiatrists interviewed 99 trainees and 109 trainers. Scoring of interview responses was determined by using a pre-defined criteria. Additional comments were recorded as free text. Interviews covered 13 domains, including: Clinical, teaching, research and management opportunities, clinical environment, clinical supervision, adequacy of job description, absence of bullying and job satisfaction. Multiple interview domain scores were combined, generating a ‘Combined’ score for each post.ResultsThe interview response rate was 97% for trainers 88% for trainees. There was a significant correlation between trainee and trainer scores for the same interview domains (Pearson’s r = 0.968, p< 0.001). Overall scores were significantly higher for specialist psychiatry posts as compared to general adult psychiatry posts (Two tailed t-test, p < 0.001, 95% CI: -0.398 to −0.132), and significantly higher for liaison psychiatry as compared to other specialist psychiatry posts (t-test: p = 0.038, 95% CI: -0.3901, -0.0118). Job satisfaction scores of year 1 to year 3 core trainees showed a significant increase with increasing seniority (Linear regression coefficient = 0.273, 95% CI: 0.033 to 0.513, ANOVA p= 0.026).ConclusionsThis in-depth examination of the quality of training on a large psychiatry training programme successfully elicited strengths and weakness of our programme. Such an interview scheme could be easily implemented in smaller schemes and may well provide important information to allow for targeted improvement of training. Additionally, trends in quality of training and job satisfaction amongst various psychiatric specialities were identified; specifically speciality posts and liaison posts in psychiatry were revealed to be the most popular with trainees.
Highlights
Most assessments of the quality of postgraduate training are based on anonymised questionnaires of trainees
We report an interview-based assessment method conducted to comprehensively assess the quality of psychiatry training in a large postgraduate psychiatry training scheme
We discuss only the results obtained from trainees and their trainers which are generalisable for other psychiatry training programmes
Summary
Most assessments of the quality of postgraduate training are based on anonymised questionnaires of trainees. We report an interview-based assessment method conducted to comprehensively assess the quality of psychiatry training in a large postgraduate psychiatry training scheme We believe this to be the first such study that uses non-anonymised face-to-face interviews of pairs of trainees and their consultant trainers to collect individualised feedback on specific posts, as opposed to a broad ‘snapshot’ of an entire scheme. This enabled us to collect comprehensive feedback, as well as enabling a direct comparison of the perceptions of both parties at the level of each individual placement. We discuss only the results obtained from trainees and their trainers which are generalisable for other psychiatry training programmes
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