Do GP trainers use feedback in drawing up their Personal Development Plans (PDPs)? Results from a quantitative study

Abstract

Background: General practice (GP) trainers play a key role GP trainees' education. To stimulate development of trainer competencies a Personal Development Plan (PDP) can be helpful, especially when feedback is incorporated. Aims: To investigate to what extent GP trainers use feedback in PDPs. Methods: GP trainers were provided with three feedback sources: trainees' rating scores, trainees' narrative comments, and selfassessment scores. Trainers were instructed to use these while drawing up PDP goals. With quantitative analyses the extent to feedback sources were used was determined. Results: Of the trainers 93% submitted a PDP. More than 75% of goals were based on provided feedback. Multiple sources addressing the same issue increased feedback use. If two sources pointed in the same direction, feedback was used more often if one of them concerned ''narrative comments''. Ratings were lowest for GP-related Expertise and Teaching Skills. Most goals defined concerned these domains. Fewer goals regarded Personal Functioning. Proportion of feedback used concerning Personal functioning was lowest. Conclusions: GP trainers use most feedback and address issues most commented upon. Narrative comments deserve a profound place when eliciting feedback. Research into the quality with which feedback is used in PDP goals should complement these results.

SMART, SMARTER, SMARTEST: The influence of peer groups compared to practice visits on the quality of action plans

“…We also asked our GP trainers to write a PDP before receiving a PV, herewith introducing a specific tool to enable us to gain a better insight into their developmental needs. We helped them to define goals by providing them with feedback consisting of their scores on a self-assessment questionnaire and their scores on the evaluations of their GP trainees of the past 4 years (van Es et al 2011). GP trainers used the feedback for more than 75% of the goals they defined.…”

“…Subsequently, to help GP trainers choose relevant goals for their PDPs, we provided them with an overview of written competency based feedback. This feedback consisted of selfassessment scores and the rating scores and narrative comments from the evaluations of the trainees who had been allocated to their practice in the past 4 years (van Es et al 2011). Trainers were asked to write a PDP (baseline) using the feedback provided.…”

“…In a previous article, we described the relationship between the content of the goals and written competency based feedback received by GP trainers (van Es et al 2011). We have not investigated the quality of the content of the plans.…”

Feedback on role model behaviour: effective for clinical trainers?

“…Van Es and colleagues [5] described recommendations for improving acceptance of feedback, for instance by providing trainers with the score ranges of their colleagues, especially if combined with narrative comments.…”