Development Strategies in Medical Education

Introduction: Assessment of clinical competence is one of the fundamental aspects of medical education.  Three hundred sixty degree feedback system for performance appraisal is a common practice that appraisee is evaluated by the people around and then he receives feedback. With   respect to important role of midwives and importance of training midwifery students in improving health of more than half of society, the present study has been conducted using a 360 degree feedback system for performance appraisal of midwifery students at Shahid Akbar Abadi maternity hospital.

Methods: The present research is a cross- sectional comparative study. The appraisal questionnaire for the quality of care and performance of nurses at midwifery office the ministry of health and medical education is the research instrument used in this study. Students' performance was examined at four different stages using Likert scale by hospital-delivered mothers, midwifery personnel, educators, practitioners in delivery room, and students' self-assessment.

Results: Mean and standard deviation of sum of appraisal scores at different stages of delivery  from the view point of clinical educators, students, midwives in charge of the labor, midwives in delivery room, practitioners in delivery room, and hospital-delivered mothers are equal to 223.63±18.70, 216.80±17.28, 192.00±21.34, 186.90±31.17, 163.20±46.04, 16.2±13.52. Mann - Whitney test indicated that appraisal scores of students' performance from the view point  of clinical educators have been greater than  thoe of other groups except for students' self-assessment (P<0.001) and minimum appraisal score relates to hospital-delivered mothers who evaluated performance lower than other groups (P=0.0001).

Conclusion: three hundred sixty degree feedback system for performance appraisal is a common practice for performance appraisal, and the results of it can be used in education planning.