Gaze Training on Task Performance Regional Anaesthesia

NCT04426227 | Unknown Phase 3

• 1 other identifier: 434-1912
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 43
• Locations: 0 countries
• Sites: N/A

Brief Summary

Regional anaesthesia is the performance of spinal, epidural or peripheral nerve blocks to allow patients to undergo surgery awake and to provide post-operative pain relief. Anaesthetists inject local anaesthetic using specialist needles close to nerves to prevent transmission of pain. Hand-held ultrasound is often used by anaesthetists to direct these needles to the correct position i.e. close to, but not in the nerve itself. If the needle is not adequately seen using the hand-held ultrasound it may pierce the nerve causing permanent nerve damage and significant patient harm. Within the time and resource constraints of postgraduate medical training, it would be advantageous to optimise expertise acquisition of practical skills with a cheap, self-directed educational intervention. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine whether gaze training is associated with improved performance of an ultrasound-guided needle task. The investigators hypothesise that improved gaze control will translate to better technical performance of an ultrasound-guided regional anaesthesia task.

Conditions

Anesthesia

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Change in Composite Error Score

  Objective error scoring of performance at needling task

  Undertaken during ultrasound assessment 1 (before training intervention) and during ultrasound assessment 2 (which will occur 10 minutes after the training intervention was undertaken). Each assessment will be 15 minutes in duration.

Secondary Outcomes (1)

• Change in Global Rating Scale

  Undertaken during ultrasound assessment 1 (before training intervention) and during ultrasound assessment 2 (which will occur 10 minutes after the training intervention). Each assessment will be 15 minutes in duration.

Other Outcomes (2)

• Change in Task completion time

  Undertaken during ultrasound assessment 1 (before training intervention) and during ultrasound assessment 2 (which will occur 10 minutes after the training intervention was undertaken). Each assessment will be 15 minutes in duration.

• Change in Fixation durations

  Undertaken during ultrasound assessment 1 (before training intervention) and during ultrasound assessment 2 (which will occur 10 minutes after the training intervention was undertaken). Each assessment will be 15 minutes in duration.

Study Arms (2)

Group Gaze

EXPERIMENTAL

The gaze-trained group will be shown a video, derived from the eye tracker, of an expert's visual control whilst performing the ultrasound task. Participants will be made aware of the target-focused gaze strategy (lengthy and stable fixations on the needling target), and the manner in which the gaze shifted from target to tools (hands, needle and transducer) in a fast, smooth fashion. They will then be advised to try to mimic the gaze strategy of the expert while undertaking the needling task as their first training task. After completion of this training task, participants will be shown their own video data, as captured by the eye tracker. Participants will be asked to comment on differences between their own video and the expert video they had previously seen. This feedback process will be replicated a further four training task attempts. Participants in this group will therefore undergo a total of five training attempts of the needling task.

Other: Gaze training

Group Discovery

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

The discovery learning group will be given no video feedback and will be instructed to perform five training attempts at the needling task without further training or feedback.

Other: Discovery learning

Interventions

Gaze training OTHER

A training module in gaze training for peripheral nerve blockade

Group Gaze

Discovery learning OTHER

A phase of discovery learning guided by novice operators themselves

Group Discovery

Eligibility Criteria

• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17), Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering or Maths (STEM) students who are capable of giving informed consent

You may not qualify if:

• Previous experience of gaze training or eye tracking software
• Previous experience of regional anaesthesia needling tasks

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Nottingham: lead

Study Officials

• David W Hewson, MBBS

  University of Nottingham

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Central Study Contacts

David W Hewson, MBBS

CONTACT

01159249924; David.hewson@nottingham.ac.uk

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: phase 3
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: DOUBLE
• Who Masked: INVESTIGATOR, OUTCOMES ASSESSOR
• Purpose: OTHER
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Honorary Assistant Professor

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: June 2, 2020
• First Posted: June 11, 2020
• Study Start: August 1, 2020
• Primary Completion: December 1, 2020
• Study Completion: December 1, 2020
• Last Updated: June 11, 2020

Record last verified: 2020-06

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share