TY - JOUR
T1 - The logic behind entrustable professional activity frameworks
T2 - A scoping review of the literature
AU - Hennus, Marije P.
AU - van Dam, Marjel
AU - Gauthier, Stephen
AU - Taylor, David R.
AU - ten Cate, Olle
N1 - Funding Information:
There has been no significant financial support for this work that could have influenced its outcome.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Medical Education published by Association for the Study of Medical Education and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2022/9
Y1 - 2022/9
N2 - Introduction: Entrustable professional activities (EPAs), discrete profession-specific tasks requiring integration of multiple competencies, are increasingly used to help define and inform curricula of specialty training programmes. Although guidelines exist to help guide the developmental process, deciding what logic to use to draft a preliminary EPA framework poses a crucial but often difficult first step. The logic of an EPA framework can be defined as the perspective used by its developers to break down the practice of a profession into units of professional work. This study aimed to map dominant logics and their rationales across postgraduate medical education and fellowship programmes. Methods: A scoping review using systematic searches within five electronic databases (Medline, Embase, Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science) was performed. Dominant logics of included papers were identified using inductive coding and iterative analysis. Results: In total, 42 studies were included. Most studies were conducted in the United States (n = 22; 52%), Canada (n = 6; 14%) and the Netherlands (n = 4; 10%). Across the reported range of specialties, family medicine (n = 4; 10%), internal medicine (n = 4; 10%), paediatrics (n = 3; 7%) and psychiatry (n = 3; 7%) were the most common. Three dominant logics could be identified, namely, ‘service provision’, ‘procedures’ and/or ‘disease or patient categories’. The majority of papers (n = 37; 88%) used two or more logics when developing EPA frameworks (median = 3, range = 1–4). Disease or patient groups and service provision were the most common logics used (39% and 37%, respectively). Conclusions: Most programmes used a combination of logics when trying to capture the essential tasks of a profession in EPAs. For each of the three dominant logics, the authors arrived at a definition and identified benefits, limitations and examples. These findings may potentially inform best practice guidelines for EPA development.
AB - Introduction: Entrustable professional activities (EPAs), discrete profession-specific tasks requiring integration of multiple competencies, are increasingly used to help define and inform curricula of specialty training programmes. Although guidelines exist to help guide the developmental process, deciding what logic to use to draft a preliminary EPA framework poses a crucial but often difficult first step. The logic of an EPA framework can be defined as the perspective used by its developers to break down the practice of a profession into units of professional work. This study aimed to map dominant logics and their rationales across postgraduate medical education and fellowship programmes. Methods: A scoping review using systematic searches within five electronic databases (Medline, Embase, Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science) was performed. Dominant logics of included papers were identified using inductive coding and iterative analysis. Results: In total, 42 studies were included. Most studies were conducted in the United States (n = 22; 52%), Canada (n = 6; 14%) and the Netherlands (n = 4; 10%). Across the reported range of specialties, family medicine (n = 4; 10%), internal medicine (n = 4; 10%), paediatrics (n = 3; 7%) and psychiatry (n = 3; 7%) were the most common. Three dominant logics could be identified, namely, ‘service provision’, ‘procedures’ and/or ‘disease or patient categories’. The majority of papers (n = 37; 88%) used two or more logics when developing EPA frameworks (median = 3, range = 1–4). Disease or patient groups and service provision were the most common logics used (39% and 37%, respectively). Conclusions: Most programmes used a combination of logics when trying to capture the essential tasks of a profession in EPAs. For each of the three dominant logics, the authors arrived at a definition and identified benefits, limitations and examples. These findings may potentially inform best practice guidelines for EPA development.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128377032&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/medu.14806
DO - 10.1111/medu.14806
M3 - Review article
C2 - 35388517
AN - SCOPUS:85128377032
SN - 0308-0110
VL - 56
SP - 881
EP - 891
JO - Medical Education
JF - Medical Education
IS - 9
ER -