Attentional Capacity and Clinician Performance (ACCP)

October 6, 2016 updated by: Prof Anthony G. Gallagher, University College Cork

Attentional Capacity and Clinician Performance: Eye-Tracking Participants When Using a High-Fidelity Surgical Simulator That Emulates Cardiology Procedures

Uncovering the distinct measurements and features that potentially exist in different levels of expertise when performing cardiology-based procedures. There is a belief that tracking the visual attention and other psychophysiological measures during performance of these procedures may assist in uncovering the attentional capacity of participants and how it links with overall performance.

Study Overview

Status

Unknown

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Attentional capacity is the number of items a person can hold in their temporal memory whilst undertaking a task (researchers equivocate this to Random Access Memory in computing hardware). Therefore, attentional capacity is thought to play a role in task performance and if a person's attentional capacity is measured 'in-vivo' then one can predict that person's ability and aptitude (classifying if they are an expert or novice since an expert will not require the full capacity of their temporal capacity, as many of the routine steps are stored in their permanent memory). The measurement of performance is of interest in medical training and competency testing research. Eye-tracking and other novel methods could offer new and effective components for measuring performance during complex procedures. These novel methods have increasingly been spotted in new healthcare research studies which aim to use them for a multitude of purposes, mostly to uncover valuable insights between different participant performance levels. One form of medical training is high-fidelity virtual reality simulators that can provide an almost life-like training environment for the trainee and one common use of these simulators is for surgical training . Some work with eye-tracking has already been done with surgical tasks that indicates visual attention does discriminate between novice and expert level performance. There is scope for using eye-tracking technology to capture visual attention during complex surgical procedures to uncover the discriminatory measurements between participants at different levels of expertise.

Aims The first aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between attentional capacity and performance during cardiology-based procedures. The hypothesise is that a significant relationship will be found and that attentional capacity will be a statistically significant predictor for discriminating between experts and novices.

The second aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between visual attention (recorded via eye tracking) and the precisely recorded actions taken by the participant during the procedure.

A third aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between physiological metrics (Heart rate, GSR recorded via E4 wristband) and the precisely recorded actions taken by the participant during the procedure.

This will be facilitated by the capture of the participant's visual attention, through worn eye-tracking glasses, level of arousal, through worn GSR/EDA wristband and their verbalisation (thinking-aloud during task performance), recorded through video/microphone, during two simulated cardiology-based procedures. The simulator will provide its own metrics (duration etc.) to represent the participants' performance during the procedure. The simulation will be provided by a state of the art of surgical simulator in the ASSERT Centre, University College Cork. An extra display monitor will also be included to provide the extra stimulus to assess attentional capacity. The monitor will display a specific playing card at certain times during the proceedings. The participant will have to acknowledge what the card was. This and the visual attention capture will provide insight to the participants' attentional capacity.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Anticipated)

14

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Ireland
    • Cork
      • Cork City, Cork, Ireland
        • Recruiting
        • ASSERT Centre, University College Cork
        • Contact:

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Qualified medical professionals, trainees/registrars or trainers/consultants, working within the cathlab environment and discipline of interventional cardiology.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • They must be qualified medical doctor with specific interest in cardiology (e.g. consultant cardiologist). Consultant group must contain consultants only and registrar group must have enrolled registrars only.

Exclusion Criteria:

-

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort
Intervention / Treatment
Trainees
Registrar Cardiologists
Behavioral: Cognitive Stimulus
Participants to pay attention to a supplementary display monitor and respond to specified stimulus images, all while performing the simulated cardiology-based procedure.
Trainers
Consultant Cardiologists
Behavioral: Cognitive Stimulus
Participants to pay attention to a supplementary display monitor and respond to specified stimulus images, all while performing the simulated cardiology-based procedure.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Mean attentional capacity
Time Frame: Up to 12 Months.
The hypothesis is that a significant statistical relationship will be found between measured attentional capacity (via a card reading task) and overall surgical task performance grading. Attentional capacity, we hypothesise, will be a statistically significant predictor for discriminating between performance level.
Up to 12 Months.
Visual attention characteristics for stimulus reading 'card' task
Time Frame: Up to 12 months.
The hypothesis is that a significant statistical relationship will be found with characteristics of participant's visual attention (e.g. mean fixation duration, mean saccade latency, overall visual latency before card acknowledgement) and the measured attentional capacity.
Up to 12 months.

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University College Cork

Collaborators

University of Ulster

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Anthony G. Gallagher, DSc, PhD, University College Cork

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

September 1, 2016

Primary Completion (Anticipated)

October 1, 2017

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 30, 2016

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 6, 2016

First Posted (Estimate)

October 10, 2016

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

October 10, 2016

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 6, 2016

Last Verified

October 1, 2016

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • ACCP - 1

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Study Data/Documents

  1. Ethics Approval
    Information comments: Ethical approval from Clinical Research Ethics Committee, University College Cork
  2. Study Protocol
    Information comments:

    Ethical applications to Clinical Research Ethics Committee, University College Cork.

    Includes Study Protocol, including references and CV of Chief Investigator Prof Anthony G Gallagher.

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

Clinical Trials on Change in Sustained Attention

Clinical Trials on Cognitive Stimulus

Search Similar Trials

Sponsors and Collaborators

Medical Conditions

Drug Interventions

CROs by country

CROs in South Africa

Conditions

Rare Diseases

Drug Interventions

Dietary Supplements

Sponsor/Collaborators

Locations

Subscribe