Competency-based Assessment of Ultrasound-guided Joint Injection Skills

Rigshospitalet

Status: Completed

Conditions: Musculoskeletal Diseases

Treatments: Other: Ultrasound guided joint injection

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05303974

2022-003

Details and patient eligibility

About

Ultrasound-guided joint injections and aspirations are frequently used in the treatment of rheumatological diseases. Studies have shown that intra-articular glucocorticoid injections (IAGCs) in the early treatment of rheumatoid arthritis is essential and leads to improved disease control and earlier achievement of remission. Unfortunately, many rheumatologists feel insecure performing IAGC due to poor and unstructured training opportunities, which can result in suboptimal treatment and potentially poorer patient outcome.

Nowadays, the gold standard training method has shifted towards competency-based education were objective assessment tools are necessary. A previous study has developed a scale for assessment of invasive ultrasound procedures, the Interventional Ultrasound Skills Evaluation (IUSE) tool. Although expert consensus supports evidence of content validity of the assessment tool, it is not known if the tool can discriminate differences in performance scores between the different levels of experience.

Enrollment: 60 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Physicians attending the yearly international conference EULAR (Denmark 2022)

  1. Novices: No or little experience with ultrasound guided joint injections.
  2. Intermediates: Participated and completed at least one formal musculoskeletal ultrasound course and performed more than 100 ultrasound guided joint injections.
  3. Experts: Physicians with a long experience with musculoskeletal ultrasound and ultrasound guided joint injections doing the procedure almost daily and providing teaching and/or research within this field.

Exclusion criteria

• No informed consent
• Novices/Intermediates: extensive experience with musculoskeletal ultrasound and/or ultrasound guided joint injections.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Diagnostic

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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60 participants in 3 patient groups

Novices

Experimental group

Description:

Measurement of competence

Treatment:

Other: Ultrasound guided joint injection

Intermediates

Experimental group

Description:

Measurement of competence

Treatment:

Other: Ultrasound guided joint injection

Experts

Experimental group

Description:

Measurement of competence

Treatment:

Other: Ultrasound guided joint injection