Minimally Invasive Surgery Survey: A Survey of Surgical Team Members' Perceptions for Successful Minimally Invasive Surgery

Study Objective: To develop a valid and reliable survey to measure surgical team members' perceptions regarding their institution's requirements for successful minimally invasive surgery (MIS). Design: Questionnaire development and validation study (Canadian Task Force classification II-2). Setting: Three hospital types: rural, urban/academic, and community/academic. Participants: Minimally invasive staff (team members). Intervention: Development and validation of a minimally invasive surgery survey (MISS). Measurement and Main Results: Using the Safety Attitudes questionnaire as a guide, we developed questions assessing study participants' attitudes regarding the requirements for successful MIS. The questions were closed-ended and responses based on a 5-point Likert scale. The large pool of questions was then given to 4 focus groups made up of 3 to 6 individuals. Each focus group consisted of individuals from a specific profession (e.g., surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, and surgical technicians). Questions were revised based on focus group recommendations, resulting in a final 52-question set. The question set was then distributed to MIS team members. Individuals were included if they had participated in > 10 MIS cases and worked in the MIS setting in the past 3 months. Participants in the trial population were asked to repeat the questionnaire 4 weeks later to evaluate internal consistency. Participants' demographics, including age, gender, specialty, profession, and years of experience, were captured in the questionnaire. Factor analysis with varimax rotation was performed to determine domains (questions evaluating similar themes). For internal consistency and reliability, domains were tested using interitem correlations and Cronbach's alpha. Cronbach's alpha > .6 was considered internally consistent. Kendall's correlation coefficient tau closer to 1 and with p < .05 was considered significant for the test-retest reliability. Two hundred fifty participants answered the initial question set. Of those, 53 were eliminated because they did not meet inclusion criteria or failed to answer all questions, leaving 197 participants. Most participants were women (68% vs 32%), and 42% were between the ages 30 and 39 years. Factor analysis identified 6 domains: collaboration, error reporting, job proficiency/efficiency, problem-solving, job satisfaction, and situational awareness. Interitem correlations testing for redundancy for each domain ranged from .2 to .7, suggesting similar themed questions while avoiding redundancy. Cronbach's alpha, testing internal consistency, was .87. Sixty-two participants from the original cohort repeated the question set at 4 weeks. Forty-three were analyzed for test-retest reliability after excluding those who did not meet inclusion criteria. The final questions showed high test-retest reliability (tau = .3-.7, p < .05). The final questionnaire was made up of 29 questions from the original 52 question set. Conclusion: The MISS is a reliable and valid tool that can be used to measure how surgical team members conceptualize the requirements for successful MIS. The MISS revealed that participants identified 6 important domains of a successful work environment: collaboration, error reporting, job proficiency/efficiency, problem-solving, job satisfaction, and situational awareness. The questionnaire can be used to understand and align various surgical team members' goals and expectations and may. help improve quality of care in the MIS setting. (C) 2017 AAGL. All rights reserved.