Breaking Bad News - Optimizing Stress Response and Communication Performance in Medical Students

NCT ID: NCT05037318

Last Updated: 2024-03-05

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 229 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2022-04-21
• Study Completion Date: 2024-02-29

Brief Summary

Breaking bad news (e.g., telling patients that they have cancer) is not only very stressful for the patients concerned, but also for the physicians delivering the diagnosis. It is unclear how this burden and the associated communication performance can be optimized. The project contributes to this goal.

The main goal of the project is to scientifically analyze to what extent the stress reaction and communication performance of medical students can be optimized when breaking bad news. Two strategies will be employed and tested for their effectiveness: First, "stress arousal reappraisal", which consists in reinterpreting physiological arousal (e.g., increased heart rate) as adaptive and beneficial for task performance. Second, medical students can be well prepared for breaking bad news by learning from worked examples (step-by-step demonstrations of how to break bad news).

The investigators hypothesize that both strategies will shift the interpretation of breaking bad news from a threat to a challenge state. This will lead to better communication performance during the task.

To test the hypothesis, about 200 medical students' communication performance, cardiovascular activity, stress hormone release, and subjective stress perception when communicating a serious cancer diagnosis to a simulated patient (actor) will be measured.

The results of the study provide a first comprehensive picture of the psychophysiological stress patterns of medical students who are entrusted with a stressful communication task. Ultimately, this may promote stress management and communication skills in future physicians.

Detailed Description

Breaking bad news (BBN; e.g., telling patients that they have cancer) is a frequent task in the medical field. Appropriate communication when BBN is crucial for patient-related outcomes. For many physicians, BBN is a very demanding task often associated with high levels of stress, which can negatively impact their communication skills and health. It is thus important to provide future physicians with effective tools that enable them to cope successfully with their stress response and to perform the BBN task at their best. The planned project aims to contribute to this important goal in novel ways. One promising approach to improve people's stress response to demanding tasks is stress arousal reappraisal, which consists in reinterpreting physiological arousal as adaptive and beneficial for task performance. Recent work suggests that medical students can be well prepared for BBN by learning from worked examples (step-by-step demonstrations of how to break bad news).

Overall objectives: The study adopts the biopsychosocial model (BPSM) of challenge and threat as organizing theoretical framework to investigate the effects of stress arousal reappraisal and preparatory worked example-based BBN learning on the psychophysiological responses and communication skills performance of medical students tasked with BBN to simulated patients (SPs). The BPSM of challenge and threat holds that individuals are in a threat state when perceived resources fall short of perceived demands in a motivated performance situation, whereas they are in a challenge state when evaluated resources outweigh perceived demands. These states are primarily assessed with a self-reported resources-demands differential (perceived resources minus perceived demands) and a cardiovascular index (sum of cardiac output and reverse scored total peripheral resistance), with larger scores reflecting greater challenge. Secondarily, as suggested by recent research, they are also associated with salivary indices of the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone) and of the sympatho-adrenal-medullary system (alpha-amylase). Compared to threats, challenge-type responses are associated with better task performance and better health outcomes.

Specific aims: The idea guiding the planned research is that both stress arousal reappraisal and preparatory worked example-based BBN learning will shift medical students' psychophysiological state from threat to challenge and by doing so their task performance will improve.

The hypotheses are: 1) students receiving stress arousal reappraisal instructions will show (i) more challenge-type psychophysiological responses and (ii) better BBN skills performance than students receiving no stress arousal reappraisal instructions; 2) students learning from a BBN-related worked example will show (iii) more challenge-type psychophysiological responses and (iv) better BBN skills performance than students not learning from a BBN-related worked example; 3) the challenge-threat resources-demands differential and cardiovascular index will be mediators of the effects of the interventions on BBN skills performance.

Method: A randomized controlled trial with a 2 (stress arousal reappraisal vs. no stress arousal reappraisal) x 2 (preparatory BBN learning with worked example vs. without worked example) between-subjects design with N = 200 Swiss medical students is envisioned. The investigators will assess participants' perceived task demands and coping resources, record their cardiovascular activity and collect their saliva before, during and after a videotaped BBN encounter with an SP. Three assessors will independently rate participants' BBN skills performance from the recordings.

Implications and relevance: Findings will support determining to what extent medical students' BBN-related stress responses and communication performance can be examined and understood from the challenge and threat perspective. Stress arousal reappraisal and preparatory worked example-based learning could be easily incorporated into the curriculum of medical students to help promote more adaptive challenge-type responses when facing BBN situations and potentially other stress-inducing communications with patients. This would ultimately have beneficial effects for both physicians and patients.

Conditions

Stress Reaction

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: FACTORIAL
• Primary Study Purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE
• Blinding Strategy: DOUBLE

Study Groups

Stress arousal reappraisal

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Stress arousal reappraisal

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Participants will watch a video explaining that stress arousal is not harmful but rather functional and adaptive for performance in stressful situations.

Worked examples

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Worked examples

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The worked example will be in form of brief video sequences showing a physician (played by an actor) delivering the bad diagnosis of lung cancer to an SP following the SPIKES protocol.

Stress arousal reappraisal + Worked examples

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Stress arousal reappraisal

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Participants will watch a video explaining that stress arousal is not harmful but rather functional and adaptive for performance in stressful situations.

Worked examples

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The worked example will be in form of brief video sequences showing a physician (played by an actor) delivering the bad diagnosis of lung cancer to an SP following the SPIKES protocol.

Control

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Stress arousal reappraisal

Participants will watch a video explaining that stress arousal is not harmful but rather functional and adaptive for performance in stressful situations.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Worked examples

The worked example will be in form of brief video sequences showing a physician (played by an actor) delivering the bad diagnosis of lung cancer to an SP following the SPIKES protocol.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Being currently enrolled as a third-year medical student
• Being German speaker
• Signed consent form

Exclusion Criteria

• Cardiovascular diseases known to affect the variables under investigation
• Neuroendocrine conditions known to affect the variables under investigation
• Use of psychotropic drugs or any medication known to affect the variables under investigation (e.g., corticosteroids, cardioactive medication)
• Wearing a pacemaker
• Pregnancy/Breastfeeding

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Center for Primary Care and Public Health (Unisante), University of Lausanne, Switzerland

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

University of Vienna

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

University of Bern

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Christoph Berendonk, PD Dr.

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

University of Bern

Locations

Institute for Medical Education

Bern, , Switzerland

Countries

Switzerland

References

Bosshard M, Schmitz FM, Guttormsen S, Nater UM, Gomez P, Berendonk C. From threat to challenge-Improving medical students' stress response and communication skills performance through the combination of stress arousal reappraisal and preparatory worked example-based learning when breaking bad news to simulated patients: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. BMC Psychol. 2023 May 10;11(1):153. doi: 10.1186/s40359-023-01167-6.

Reference Type: DERIVED

PMID: 37165406 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

100019_200831

Identifier Type: OTHER_GRANT

Identifier Source: secondary_id

BBN BPSM

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id