Table 3.

Associations^a between Trainee's Perceived Competence in Discussing End-of-life Care and Assessments of Communication Skills by Patients, Family Members, and Clinician-Evaluators

	Patients				Families				Clinician-Evaluators
	nb	β	R2incrc	P	nb	β	R2incrc	P	nb	β	R2incrc	P
Primary outcomesd
QOC-EOLe	121	−0.02	<0.01	0.87	83	−0.31	0.04	0.10	94	0.04	<0.01	0.72
QOC-GENf	122	0.01	<0.01	0.86	83	−0.21	0.06	0.07	96	0.03	<0.01	0.77
Secondary outcomes
Bad News discussionsg	123	0.03	<0.01	0.73	83	−0.15	0.03	0.08	96	0.02	<0.01	0.83
Treatment discussionsh	123	−0.11	0.02	0.06	83	-0.20	0.09	<0.01	96	0.05	0.01	0.40
End-of-Life discussionsi	123	0.08	<0.01	0.21	83	−0.06	<0.01	0.62	100	0.04	<0.01	0.51
Symptoms discussionsj	120	0.03	<0.01	0.65	79	−0.08	0.02	0.24	99	0.01	<0.01	0.91

^aParameter estimates and P-values based on robust linear regression models with a single predictor of interest, adjusted for confounders; all models were adjusted for trainee postgraduate year.

^bNumber of trainees with valid data on both the aggregated outcome and the predictor/covariates.

^cIncrement in R² obtained when adding the predictor of interest to a model that included only the covariates.

^dPredictor for primary analyses: trainee's score on the 17-item perceived competence scale rescaled to 0–10 range.

^eQOC-EOL: End-of-life care subscale from Quality of Communication questionnaire. Patient, clinician models adjusted for external evaluators' minority racial-ethnic status.

^fQOC-GEN: General communication subscale from Quality of Communication questionnaire. Patient, clinician models adjusted for external evaluators' minority racial-ethnic status.

^gPredictor for bad-news-discussion evaluation: trainee's score on the bad-news subscale of the competence rating. Clinician models adjusted for clinician-evaluators' minority racial-ethnic status.

^hPredictor for treatment-discussion evaluation: trainee's score on the treatment subscale of the competence rating. Patient, clinician models adjusted for external evaluators' racial-ethnic minority group membership; patient model adjusted for patient sex.

ⁱPredictor for end-of-life discussion evaluation: trainee's score on the end-of-life subscale of the competence rating. Patient model adjusted for patients' minority racial-ethnic status; family model adjusted for trainee sex, trainee minority racial-ethnic status, family-evaluators' sex.

^jPredictor for symptom-discussion evaluation: trainee's score on the symptom subscale of the competence rating. Patient model adjusted for minority racial-ethnic status; family model adjusted for family-evaluators sex; clinician model adjusted for trainee sex, clinician-evaluators' sex.