An interventional study of Mastery learning in communication skills in Communication Research, Communication, Personal and Burnout, Professional, sponsored by Heather Ballard. Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 20 Years to 60 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-07-10.
Sponsored by Heather Ballard · Not applicable, Interventional, and Other
The goal of this study is to determine whether mastery learning in communication skills can improve skills in a simulated environment and have translational improvements in outcomes. The main questions it aims to answer are: 1. Does mastery learning improve skills in the simulation laboratory? 2. Does mastery learning improve clinical skills as seen by milestone performance? and 3 Does mastery learning improve burnout levels? The study is a multi-institutional randomized controlled trial of anesthesiology residents from five different residency programs. Participants will be randomized to mastery training in communication skills and standard of care, which is vicarious learning. Researchers will compare these two groups to see if mastery learning improves skills and translational outcomes.
719 studies on the registry are indexed under Communication; 159 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 80 is below the median of 144 across 571 interventional studies indexed under Communication.
Browse Communication studies →This is the only study on the registry with Heather Ballard as lead sponsor.
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Exclusion Criteria:
Behavioral: Mastery learning in communication skills
Participants will undergo simulation-based mastery learning curriculum in difficult conversations.
Communication skills
Post test checklist skills scores, a 16-item checklist was developed using the modified Delphi technique with possible scores of 0 (lowest) to 16 (highest). All items in the checklist are graded dichotomously and (1 if done correctly and 0 if not done or done incorrectly.
Time frame: one year
Milestones Performance
The ACGME interpersonal and communication core competency is subdivided into three Anesthesiology Milestones: Patient and Family-centered communication, Interprofessional and Team Communication, and Communication within Health Care Systems. Each milestone is graded on a score of 1 (novice) to 5 (expert) by each residency program's Clinical Competency Committee (CCC).
Time frame: two years
Burnout levels
The Maslach Burnout Inventory Scale (MBI-9) will be used to estimate the levels of burnout prior to participation in the intervention, immediately after course completion, and at 2 and 6 months after training. The MBI is a measure of job burnout defined by three subscales: emotional exhaustion (EE) (9 items), depersonalization (DP) (5 items), and professional accomplishment (PA) (8 items), each with 7-point Likert-type, frequency response scale (0 = never, 1 = a few times a year or less, 2 = once a month or less, 3 = a few times a month, 4 = once a week, 5 = a few times a week, 6 = every day) \[1, 2\]. Scales are scored such that higher scores indicate more of each construct. Higher scores on the EE and DP subscales indicate a higher burnout symptom burden; lower scores on the PA subscale indicate a higher burnout symptom burden.
Time frame: 1.5 years
Plan to share: Yes — de-identified study data will be available upon request when study is completed and published
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