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. 2022 Dec 15;17(12):e0278173. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278173

The effect of short-course point-of-care echocardiography training on the performance of medical interns in children

Esfandiar Nazari 1, Zahra Bahman Tajani 1, Saman Maroufizadeh 2, Mohammad Ghorbani 1, Afagh Hassanzadeh Rad 1, Hamidreza Badeli 1,*
Editor: Manuela Cabiati3
PMCID: PMC9754179  PMID: 36520779

Abstract

Background

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) can add complementary information to physical examination. Despite its development in several medical specialties, there is a lack of similar studies on children by medical interns and cardiologists. Therefore, investigators aimed to assess the effect of short-course training on the performance of medical interns in point-of-care echocardiography in children.

Methods

This analytic cross-sectional study was conducted on 161 hospitalized children in 17 Shahrivar children’s hospital, Iran, from January 2021 to May 2021. Seven interns (trainees) participated in a short course of point-of-care echocardiography to assess left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), inferior vena cava collapsibility index (IVCCI), and the presence of pericardial effusion (PEff). Each patient underwent point-of-care echocardiography by one of the trainees. Then, in less than one hour, the echocardiography was performed by a single cardiologist. Agreement between the cardiologist and trainees was examined using Cohen’s kappa coefficient and Prevalence-Adjusted Bias-Adjusted Kappa (PABAK). For numerical variables, the agreement was examined using the concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).

Results

Results showed that the cardiologist and trainees detected LVEF >50, IVCCI >50%, and the absence of PEff in most of the participants. A good agreement in terms of ICC and CCC for LVEF (0.832 and 0.831, respectively) and a good agreement in terms of ICC and CCC for IVCCI (0.878 and 0.877, respectively) were noted. Using categorical scoring of LVEF and IVCCI showed 94.4% and 87.6% complete agreement, respectively. Furthermore, using categorical scoring of LVEF and IVCCI, Cohen’s kappa coefficient was 0.542 (moderate) and 0.619 (substantial), respectively. The PABAK for LVEF and IVCCI were 0.886 (almost perfect) and 0.752 (substantial), respectively. For PEff, Cohen’s kappa and PABAK were 0.797 (moderate) and 0.988 (almost perfect), respectively, and the complete agreement was noted in 160 patients (99.4%).

Conclusions

This study showed that a short teaching course could help medical interns to assess LVEF, IVCCI, and PEff in children. Therefore, it seems that adding this course to medical interns’ curricula can be promising.

Background

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is the application of ultrasound by non-radiologists that can add complementary, necessary, and rapid information to physical examination [1]. In recent decades, the use of ultrasound has been developed in diverse branches of medicine such as emergency medicine, gynecology, obstetrics, urology, nephrology, anesthesiology, etc [2].

The application of cardiovascular ultrasound at the bedside as a type of POCUS is highlighted as a complementary diagnostic tool in medical settings. Point-of-care echocardiography or focused cardiac ultrasound (FoCUS) helps clinicians with accurate diagnosis, early decision making, and appropriate treatment by assessing cardiac function and differentiating causes of shock, dyspnea, and chest pain [3]. Due to the lack of access to cardiologists in emergency settings, using FoCUS by non-radiologists can aid clinicians in having a rapid assessment and diagnosis [2]. It measures cardiac parameters such as left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), inferior vena cava collapsibility index (IVCCI), the presence of pericardial effusion (PEff), and tamponade.

Medical interns and residents in referral teaching hospitals are the first-line healthcare providers. Because of their persistent attendance at the patients’ bedside, teaching technical skills for using FoCUS can lead to immediate decision making and accelerate the diagnosis and treatment process [4]. Previous investigations showed that using ultrasound in teaching anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology courses enhanced basic science training in 1st- and 2nd-year students [5, 6].

It has facilitated learning the clinical skills in the 3rd- and 4th- year medical students [7, 8]. To now, limited studies on adults measured the agreement of measuring cardiac parameters by medical residents and clinicians [3, 9] and reported positive results. Also, recent studies have already assessed the efficacy of point-of-care transthoracic echocardiography training for medical students [1012]. A similar previous study on children [13] by emergency medicine residents indicated promising results as well.

Despite the development of POCUS in several medical curricula [14, 15] focusing on its use by medical interns, there is a lack of similar studies on children. Therefore, we aimed to measure LVEF, IVCCI, and the presence of PEff through the application of FoCUS. As we could not assess children in critical situations and do multiple FoCUS exams on one patient (child) due to ethical considerations, this study investigated the effect of short-course training on the performance of medical interns in FoCUS for measuring the parameters mentioned above in a referral pediatric cardiology ward.

Methods

Patients and settings

This analytic cross-sectional study was conducted on 161 hospitalized children in 17 Shahrivar hospital, Iran, from January to May 2021. The inclusion criteria were patients’ need for echocardiography in non-critical settings and patients’ and/or parents’ willingness to participate in this study. Besides, we did not include patients with poor cooperation. Seven inexperienced in echocardiography interns (trainees) participated in performing FoCUS.

Teaching course

Before enrollment, trainees attended a ten-hour course by two experienced clinicians, a pediatric cardiologist and a pediatric nephrologist (who had more than ten years of experience in POCUS). This course consisted of teaching knobology, modes, measuring IVC and LVEF diameters, and detecting the presence or absence of PEff. In addition to the ten-hour course, trainees observed five real-time point-of-care echocardiography by the cardiologist and practiced on five patients under the supervision of the cardiologist.

LVEF was measured by the M-mode method on the apex of the mitral valve in short and long axes views. The internal diameter of the left ventricle, intraventricular wall thickness, and left ventricular posterior wall thickness at the end of systole and diastole were measured. The percentage of LVEF was calculated by Teichholz [16] formula. Based on this formula, LVEF was divided into three subclasses of <30% (severe), 30–50% (moderate), and >50% (normal).

IVCCI was performed by the obtained images from the subcostal long-axis view. The IVC diameter was calculated in two centimeters from the junction of the right atrium and perpendicular to the long axis. Measuring the minimum diameter of inhalation (IVCmin) and the maximum diameter of exhalation (IVCmax) was mandatory to measure the IVCCI. IVCCI was defined based on the following formula: (IVCmax—IVCmin) / IVCmax ×100. It was classified as ≤50% (hypervolumic) and >50% (euvolumic or hypovolumic).

Regarding the presence or absence of PEff, the following method was used. PEff was diagnosed by the presence of an anechoic stripe in the pericardium around the heart and classified based on the presence or absence of effusion.

Data gathering

In this study, each patient underwent FoCUS by one of the trainees. Then, in less than one hour, the echocardiography was performed by a single cardiologist. Trainees and the cardiologist used the same ultrasound device (Samsung EKO7) with a phase array probe and were unaware of the clinical diagnosis.

Data were gathered by a form including demographic characteristics (age and sex) and the concordance of obtained results between trainees and the cardiologist regarding the three cardiac parameters (LVEF, IVCCI, and PEff). The authors had access to information that could identify individual participants during or after data collection.

Sample size

As this study aimed to assess the agreement between medical interns and the cardiologist, 161 patients were needed to be enrolled (23 patients for each intern).

α = 0.05,

z1-α/2 = 1.96

ρ Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (the expected reliability):0.8

m (numbers of trainees): 7

W (Weighted Kappa Coefficient): 0.3

Ethical considerations

Ethics approval was obtained from the Regional Ethics Committee, Guilan University of Medical Sciences. (No: IR.GUMS.REC.1399.477, Date: 1.6.2021). The informed written consent letter was obtained from the parents or guardians before enrollment.

Statistical analysis

Data were reported by number, percent, mean, and standard deviation. LVEF and IVCCI were analyzed numerically and categorical, and PEff was indicated only as a nominal variable. Inter-rater agreement between cardiologists and trainees was calculated using Cohen’s kappa coefficient for qualitative variables. The Prevalence-Adjusted Bias-Adjusted Kappa (PABAK) was also calculated to address the influence of prevalence and bias on Cohen’s kappa. For numerical variables, inter-rater agreement was examined using concordance correlation coefficient (CCC), intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), and Bland-Altman Plot. ICC as a reliability index reflects both degrees of correlation and agreement. The CCC measures the degree to which pairs of observations fall on the 45° line through the origin. The scatter plot points will line up near the 45° line through the origin if the measurements agree closely. The strength of agreement for the kappa value and PABAK can be interpreted as follows: <0 = poor; 0–0.20 = slight; 0.21–0.40 = fair; 0.41–0.60 = moderate; 0.61–0.80 = substantial; 0.81–1.00 = almost perfect. For ICC and CCC, values of <0.5, 0.5–0.75, 0.75–0.9, and >0.9 were considered as poor, moderate, good, and excellent agreement, respectively [17]. Data analysis was performed using MedCalc for Windows, version 18.9.1 (MedCalc Software, Ostend, Belgium), and graphs were depicted using GraphPad Prism, Version 8.0.1 (GraphPad Prism Software Inc., San Diego, CA, USA).

Results

Of the 161 children, 86 (53.4%) were boys, and the mean age was 5.86 ± 3.83 years. Results showed that the cardiologist and trainees indicated LVEF >50% (92.6% versus 94.4%, respectively), IVCCI >50% (80.2% versus 87.9%, respectively), and the absence of PEff (98.1% versus 98.8%, respectively) in the majority of participants (Table 1).

Table 1. The descriptive statistics for LVEF, IVCCI, and PE among children according to the cardiologist and trainees’ assessments.

Cardiologist Trainees
LVEF, n (%)
    <30 0 0
    30–50 12 (7.4) 9 (5.6)
    >50 149 (92.6) 152 (94.4)
Mean ± SD 64.98 ± 8.85 64.90 ± 8.63
IVCCI, n (%)
    <50 32 (19.8) 34 (21.1)
    >50 129 (80.2) 127 (87.9)
Mean ± SD 59.24 ± 11.42 59.43 ± 11.65
Pericardial Effusion, n (%)
    Negative 159 (98.8) 158 (98.1)
    Positive 2 (1.2) 3 (1.9)

SD: Standard Deviation; LVEF: Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction; IVCCI: Inferior Vena Cava Collapsibility Index.

Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction (LVEF)

The CCC was estimated to be 0.831 (good agreement, 95% CI: 0.776 to 0.873), and the scatter plot in Fig 1A shows that the data points fell on or near the line of equality. The ICC was 0.832 (good agreement, 95% CI: 0.777 to 0.874). we also assessed the agreement between the cardiologist and trainees through the visual inspection of the Bland-Altman plot (Fig 1B). This figure shows that nearly all the points (95.6%) lie between the lower and upper limits of agreement. No bias or trend in the differences can be observed, indicating good agreement between the cardiologist and trainees. Furthermore, using categorical scoring of LVEF, the complete agreement was 94.4% (152/161), and Cohen’s kappa coefficient was 0.542 (95% CI: 0.278 to 0.807), which was considered to be moderate agreement (see Table 2). The PABAK that addressed the influence of low prevalence on Cohen’s kappa was 0.886, which was considered to be almost perfect.

Fig 1.

Fig 1

(a) Scatter plot of cardiologist versus trainees on LVEF, (b) Bland and Altman plot for assessing agreement between trainees and cardiologist on LVEF. LVEF: Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction. Note. (a) Solid line: best-fit line; Dashed line: 45° line through the origin. (b) M: Mean; SD: Standard Deviation.

Table 2. Agreement between cardiologist and trainees in assessing left ventricular ejection fraction among children.

Cardiologist
LVEF 30–50 LVEF 51–100
Trainees LVEF 30–50 6 3
LVEF 51–100 6 146
Cohen’s kappa coefficient (95% CI) 0.542 (0.278–0.807)
PABAK 0.886
Complete agreement, n (%) 152 (94.4%)

LVEF: Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction; CI: Confidence Interval; PABAK: Prevalence-Adjusted Bias-Adjusted Kappa.

Inferior Vena Cava Collapsibility Index (IVCCI)

The CCC was 0.877 (good agreement, 95% CI: 0.836 to 0.908). Fig 2A also shows the points lined up close to the 45° line through the origin. The ICC was 0.878 (good agreement, 95% CI: 0.837 to 0.909). The Bland-Altman plot (Fig 2B) shows that all the points except seven (95.6%) were within the lower and upper limits of agreement; No obvious trend/bias was found in the scattering of points. Furthermore, using categorical scoring of IVCCI, the complete agreement was 87.6% (141/161), and Cohen’s kappa coefficient was 0.619 (95% CI: 0.467 to 0.771), which was considered to be moderate agreement (see Table 3). The PABAK was 0.752, which was considered to be substantial.

Fig 2.

Fig 2

(a) Scatter plot of cardiologist versus trainees on IVCCI, (b) Bland and Altman plot for assessing agreement between trainees and cardiologist on IVCCI. IVCCI: Inferior Vena Cava Collapsibility Index. Note. (a) Solid line: best-fit line; Dashed line: 45° line through the origin. (b) M: Mean; SD: Standard Deviation.

Table 3. Agreement between cardiologist and trainees in assessing inferior vena cava collapsibility index among children.

Cardiologist
IVCCI 1–50 IVCCI 51–100
Trainees IVCCI 1–50 23 11
IVCCI 51–100 9 118
Cohen’s kappa coefficient (95% CI) 0.619 (0.467–0.771)
PABAK 0.752
Complete agreement, n (%) 141 (87.6%)

IVCCI: Inferior Vena Cava Collapsibility Index; CI: Confidence Interval; PABAK: Prevalence-Adjusted Bias-Adjusted Kappa.

Pericardial Effusion (PE)

The complete agreement was noted in 160 patients (99.4%). The Cohen kappa coefficient was 0.797 (95% CI: 0.409–1.000), indicating substantial agreement. The PABAK was 0.988 (95% CI: 0.963–1.000), considered almost perfect (Table 4).

Table 4. Agreement between cardiologist and trainees in assessing pericardial effusion among children.

Cardiologist
PE - PE +
Trainees PE - 158 0
PE + 1 2
Cohen’s kappa coefficient (95% CI) 0.797 (0.409–1.000)
PABAK 0.988
Complete agreement, n (%) 160 (99.4%)

PE: Pericardial Effusion; CI: Confidence Interval; PABAK: Prevalence-Adjusted Bias-Adjusted Kappa

Discussion

FoCUS can add complementary information to routine physical examinations. It is a known concept for emergency medicine specialists [1820]. Pervious limited investigations assessed point-of-care echocardiography training in emergency and internal medicine, and pediatric residents reported promising results [3, 9]. Besides, this study showed that a limited teaching course could help medical interns to perform FoCUS to assess LVEF, IVCCI, and PEff in children.

In the current study, there was an excellent agreement (94.4%) between the cardiologist and interns regarding LVEF. Bustam et al. performed FOCUS by the emergency medicine residents on 100 adult patients and mentioned a 92.9% agreement between residents and the cardiologist for LVEF [3]. Randazzo et al. reported 86.1% as the agreement of FOCUS performed by eight non-cardiologist clinicians [9]. Considering the agreement levels, it seems that our medical interns’ ability was the same as individuals with higher educational levels in the previous investigations [3, 9]. Hüppe et al. performed FOCUS on 250 patients by 25 of last year’s medical interns (ten patients by each medical intern). Their results showed that the mean agreement of assessing LVEF in the first patient was 60%, reaching 91.3% in the tenth patient [21]. Their results emphasized the importance of exercise in improving their skills.

Regarding IVCCI, the results showed a good agreement (87.6%) between the trainees and the cardiologist. Bustam et al. assessed the IVCCI and mentioned a 64.2% agreement (moderate level) between the emergency medicine residents and the cardiologist [3]. As IVC diameter can be influenced by respiratory rate and inhalation volume; it may induce this difference in concordance level between the cardiologist and trainees.

The agreement regarding the presence of PEff between the cardiologist and trainees was 99.4%. Consistent with our results, Bustam et al. mentioned 98% agreement [3]. Although there were limited cases of PEff in our participants, due to the complete agreement, we can conclude that the trainees and the cardiologist had practical knowledge to rule out the absence of PEff.

Limitations

Although performing multiple FoCUS exams on one patient could ideally assess the agreement between trainees and the cardiologist, we evaluated each patient by one intern and cardiologist due to ethical considerations. Based on our study design and exclusion criteria, we enrolled 161 patients by consecutive sampling. Therefore, we could not allocate patients with diverse types of LVEF, IVCCI, and PEff. Hence, it would be better to design further investigations focusing on pediatric patients with definite pathologies.

Conclusions

This study showed that a short teaching course could help medical interns to assess LVEF, IVCCI, and PEff in children. Therefore, it seems that adding this course to medical interns’ curricula can be promising. Further studies are recommended to determine how integrating medical interns in the imaging process can change clinical treatment and improve efficiency or time-to-treatment.

Supporting information

S1 Checklist. PLOS ONE clinical studies checklist.

(DOCX)

S2 Checklist. STROBE statement—checklist of items that should be included in reports of observational studies.

(DOCX)

S1 Data

(XLSX)

Acknowledgments

This study was approved as a proposal by the Vice-Chancellor of Guilan University of Medical Sciences. It was the thesis of the second author (Dr. Zahra Bahman Tajani).

Abbreviations

SD

Standard Deviation

CI

Confidence Interval

LVEF

Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction

IVCCI

Inferior Vena Cava Collapsibility Index

PABAK

Prevalence-Adjusted Bias-Adjusted Kappa

CCC

Concordance Correlation Coefficient

ICC

Intraclass Correlation Coefficient

Data Availability

All relevant data are within the paper and its supporting information files.

Funding Statement

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

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Decision Letter 0

Manuela Cabiati

6 Jun 2022

PONE-D-22-05938The effect of short course training on the performance of medical students in point-of-care echocardiography: A cross-sectional study.PLOS ONE

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The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: I am very grateful for the opportunity to review this manuscript.

The study is about the agreement between the point of care ultrasound findings between trained medical interns and a professional cardiologist. The study is interesting and provides good information about the topic. I have a few points to address.

Despite the study was conducted in a pediatric population, this was not mentioned either in the title or in the conclusion of the manuscript. The title has to clearly state that this is a pediatric study, to attract the correct audience. In addition, the conclusion should be based only on the study results, so it has to mention the pediatric population in any drawn conclusion.

All over the study, the authors exchange between medical students and medical interns. It is better to stick to the description of medical interns as they are obviously different from medical students.

The overall language of the manuscript needs a thorough revision, as some sentences are not clear and difficult to understand and other have grammatical errors. Some examples are mentioned below:

Abstract

The first sentence of the abstract is not very clear and the second one is very lengthy and difficult to understand.

The second sentence of the abstract results better to be rephrased for example to start with “A good agreement in terms of ... and a good agreement of ... were noted”

Keywords: could be more specific and contain the words POCUS and FoCUS

Background

- “… to obtain results from the physical examination”, What does that mean? Do you mean to add data to the physical examination?

- “According to the lack of access”. I think you mean due to lack of access.

- “…in referral educational and care centers”, needs further explanation

- “Regarding their persistent …”, you can change to “because of …”

- “To now, limited studies have been performed to assess the agreement of measuring cardiac parameters by medical residents and clinicians on adults”, needs rephrasing

- “The development of POCUS in several medical curricula focusing on its use by medical students, the rapid development of incorporating it in medicine, and the lack of similar study in pediatrics assessing the effect of limited training on medical interns”. The sentence is lengthy and unclear.

Methods

- “short and long axes” , add “ views

- “two centimeters of the junction from the right atrium”, should be “from the junction”

- Please add more details about the device model and type of the probe used.

- “As this study aimed to assess the agreement …”. Please add the agreement between whom

Results

- “indicated LVEF >50%”, change to” indicated that LVEF was >50%”

- “most patients”, should be “most of the patients”

- “was considered almost perfect”, use “to be”

Discussion

- “and some medical centers have already used it routinely”, The sentence needs a reference

- “Based on the importance of this issue, this study showed that a limited teaching course could help medical interns to perform FoCUS for assessing LVEF”. The sentence structure needs to be changed

- “Results showed that the ability of medical interns was the same with residents and clinicians with higher educational levels”. Which results are you referring to here?

- “had practical knowledge”, should be “had practical knowledge”

Reviewer #2: Nazari et al have performed a cross-sectional study conducted on 161 hospitalized children in 17 Shahrivar children's hospital, Iran, from January 2021 to May 2021. Seven interns (trainees) participated in a short course of point-of-care echocardiography for assessing left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), inferior vena cava collapsibility index (IVCCI), and the presence of pericardial effusion (PEff). Each echocardiographic analysis was performed by one of the trainees and a single cardiologist.Agreement between the cardiologist and trainees was examined using Cohen's kappa coefficient and Prevalence-Adjusted Bias-Adjusted Kappa (PABAK). Results showed that the cardiologist and trainees detected LVEF >50, IVCCI >50%, and the absence of PEff in most of the participants. The authors conclude that short teaching course could help medical interns to assess LVEF, IVCCI, and PEff in an accurate manner.

Major issues

1) Recent studies has already assessed the efficacy of a point-of-care transthoracic echocardiography training for medical students (please see J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth. 2021 Mar;35(3):826-833; Pilot Feasibility Stud. 2021 Sep 14;7(1):175; Postgrad Med J. 2021 Jan;97(1143):10-15. ). The authors do not mention these studies. Therefore, they should evaluate the novelty of the present study in the light of the previous ones.

2) The manuscript requires a comprehensive editing in order to better discuss the results. The reader sometimes has the impression of reading a preliminary report without adequate elaboration.

3) In the current study, the authors claims that there was an excellent agreement (94.4%) between the cardiologist and trainees regarding LVEF.The percentage of LVEF was calculated by Teichholz formula. However, the authors should show data regarding LV end-diastolic and end-systolic internal diameters, and heart rate. Moreover, data on intraventricular wall thickness, and left ventricular posterior wall thickness at the end of systole and diastole should be provided. What about the rhythm? Please add more information.

**********

6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Mohammed Abdellatif

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PLoS One. 2022 Dec 15;17(12):e0278173. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278173.r002

Author response to Decision Letter 0


20 Jul 2022

Dear editor in chief,

We appreciate your great comments, we revised our article based on these comments.

2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified (1) whether consent was informed and (2) what type you obtained (for instance, written or verbal, and if verbal, how it was documented and witnessed). If your study included minors, state whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians. If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information.

If you are reporting a retrospective study of medical records or archived samples, please ensure that you have discussed whether all data were fully anonymized before you accessed them and/or whether the IRB or ethics committee waived the requirement for informed consent. If patients provided informed written consent to have data from their medical records used in research, please include this information.

We appreciate your comment. We modified and added the following statement regarding the consent letter. The informed written consent letter was obtained from the parents or guardians before enrollment.

3. You indicated that you had ethical approval for your study. In your Methods section, please ensure you have also stated whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians of the minors included in the study or whether the research ethics committee or IRB specifically waived the need for their consent.

We appreciate your comment. We modified and added the following statement regarding the consent letter. The informed written consent letter was obtained from the parents or guardians before enrollment.

4. Your ethics statement should only appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please delete it from any other section.

We appreciate your comment. We deleted it.

5. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information.

We modified it.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer #1:

Despite the study was conducted in a pediatric population, this was not mentioned either in the title or in the conclusion of the manuscript. The title has to clearly state that this is a pediatric study, to attract the correct audience. In addition, the conclusion should be based only on the study results, so it has to mention the pediatric population in any drawn conclusion.

We appreciate your comment. We modified and added the following statement.

Title: The effect of short-course point-of-care echocardiography training on the performance of medical interns in children.

Conclusion: This study showed that a short teaching course could help medical interns to assess LVEF, IVCCI, and PEff in children. Therefore, it seems that adding this course to medical inerns' curricula can be promising.

All over the study, the authors exchange between medical students and medical interns. It is better to stick to the description of medical interns as they are obviously different from medical students.

We appreciate your comment. We modified it and mentioned medical interns in all sections related to our study.

The overall language of the manuscript needs a thorough revision, as some sentences are not clear and difficult to understand and other have grammatical errors. Some examples are mentioned below:

Abstract

The first sentence of the abstract is not very clear and the second one is very lengthy and difficult to understand.

We appreciate your comment. We modified it. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) can add complementary information to physical examination. Despite its development in several medical specialties, there is a lack of similar studies on children by medical interns and cardiologists. Therefore, investigators aimed to assess the effect of short-course training on the performance of medical interns in point-of-care echocardiography in children.

The second sentence of the abstract results better to be rephrased for example to start with “A good agreement in terms of ... and a good agreement of ... were noted”

We appreciate your comment. We modified it as below.

A good agreement in terms of ICC and CCC for LVEF (0.832 and 0.831, respectively) and a good agreement in terms of ICC and CCC for IVCCI (0.878 and 0.877, respectively) were noted.

Keywords: could be more specific and contain the words POCUS and FoCUS

We appreciate your comment. We searched MESH and unfortunately we could not find POCUS or FoCUS. Therefore, we added Ultrasonography and Diagnostic Imaging.

Background

- “… to obtain results from the physical examination”, What does that mean? Do you mean to add data to the physical examination?

We appreciate your comment. We modified it.

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is the application of ultrasound by non-radiologists that can add complementary, necessary, and rapid information to physical examination

- “According to the lack of access”. I think you mean due to lack of access.

We appreciate your comment. We modified it.

- “…in referral educational and care centers”, needs further explanation

We appreciate your comment. We modified it as referral teaching hospitals

- “Regarding their persistent …”, you can change to “because of …”

We appreciate your comment. We modified it.

- “To now, limited studies have been performed to assess the agreement of measuring cardiac parameters by medical residents and clinicians on adults”, needs rephrasing

We appreciate your comment. We modified it as below.

To now, limited studies on adults measured the agreement of measuring cardiac parameters by medical residents and clinicians

- “The development of POCUS in several medical curricula focusing on its use by medical students, the rapid development of incorporating it in medicine, and the lack of similar study in pediatrics assessing the effect of limited training on medical interns”. The sentence is lengthy and unclear.

We appreciate your comment. We modified it as below.

Despite the development of POCUS in several medical curricula 11-12 focusing on its use by medical interns, there is a lack of similar studies on children.

Methods

- “short and long axes” , add “ views

We appreciate your comment. We modified it.

- “two centimeters of the junction from the right atrium”, should be “from the junction”

We appreciate your comment. We modified it as below.

From the junction of the right atrium

- Please add more details about the device model and type of the probe used.

We appreciate your comment. We modified it as below.

Ultrasound device (Samsung EKO7) with phase array probe

- “As this study aimed to assess the agreement …”. Please add the agreement between whom

We appreciate your comment. We modified it as below.

As this study aimed to assess the agreement between medical interns and the cardiologist.

Results

- “indicated LVEF >50%”, change to” indicated that LVEF was >50%”

We appreciate your comment. We modified it.

- “most patients”, should be “most of the patients”

We appreciate your comment. We modified it.

- “was considered almost perfect”, use “to be”

We appreciate your comment. We modified it.

Discussion

- “and some medical centers have already used it routinely”, the sentence needs a reference

We appreciate your comment. We added following statement and references.

FoCUS can add complementary information to routine physical examination. It is a known concept for emergency medicine specialists.

Farsi D, Hajsadeghi S, Hajighanbari MJ, Mofidi M, Hafezimoghadam P, Rezai M, Mahshidfar B, Abiri S, Abbasi S. Focused cardiac ultrasound (FOCUS) by emergency medicine residents in patients with suspected cardiovascular diseases. J Ultrasound. 2017 May 2;20(2):133-138. doi: 10.1007/s40477-017-0246-5. PMID: 28593003; PMCID: PMC5440337.

Biais M, Carrié C, Delaunay F, Morel N, Revel P, Janvier G. Evaluation of a new pocket echoscopic device for focused cardiac ultrasonography in an emergency setting. Crit Care. 2012 May 14;16(3):R82. doi: 10.1186/cc11340. PMID: 22583539; PMCID: PMC3580625.

Albaroudi B, Haddad M, Albaroudi O, Abdel-Rahman ME, Jarman R, Harris T. Assessing left ventricular systolic function by emergency physician using point of care echocardiography compared to expert: systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur J Emerg Med. 2022 Feb 1;29(1):18-32. doi: 10.1097/MEJ.0000000000000866. PMID: 34406134; PMCID: PMC8691376.

- “Based on the importance of this issue, this study showed that a limited teaching course could help medical interns to perform FoCUS for assessing LVEF”. The sentence structure needs to be changed

We appreciate your comment. We modified it as below.

Besides, this study showed that a limited teaching course could help medical interns to perform FoCUS for assessing LVEF, IVCCI, and PEff in children.

- “Results showed that the ability of medical interns was the same with residents and clinicians with higher educational levels”. Which results are you referring to here?

We appreciate your comment. We modified it as below.

Considering the agreement levels, it seems that the ability of our medical interns was the same with individuals with higher educational levels in the previous investigations 3,9

Reviewer #2:

Major issues

1) Recent studies has already assessed the efficacy of a point-of-care transthoracic echocardiography training for medical students (please see J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth. 2021 Mar;35(3):826-833; Pilot Feasibility Stud. 2021 Sep 14;7(1):175; Postgrad Med J. 2021 Jan;97(1143):10-15. ). The authors do not mention these studies. Therefore, they should evaluate the novelty of the present study in the light of the previous ones.

We appreciate your comment. We modified it and added the above mentioned studies.

2) The manuscript requires a comprehensive editing in order to better discuss the results. The reader sometimes has the impression of reading a preliminary report without adequate elaboration.

We appreciate your comment. But as you know, this study aimed to assess the concordance between the cardiologist and medical interns regarding the three mentioned parameters and most of our results primarily reported as descriptive statistics. Although we tried to discuss our results clinically and changed some sections due to your valuable comments, unfortunately the nature of our results did not let us elaborate more in some sections.

3) In the current study, the authors claims that there was an excellent agreement (94.4%) between the cardiologist and trainees regarding LVEF. The percentage of LVEF was calculated by Teichholz formula. However, the authors should show data regarding LV end-diastolic and end-systolic internal diameters, and heart rate. Moreover, data on intraventricular wall thickness, and left ventricular posterior wall thickness at the end of systole and diastole should be provided. What about the rhythm? Please add more information.

We appreciate your great comment, but we have some ethical limitations. As you know, this preliminary study was performed by medical interns on children and indicated promising results. Despite thorough assessment of the cardiologist on each patient considering all items mentioned above, our medical interns only indicated LV end-diastolic and end-systolic diameters and our device automatically calculated LVEF by Teichholz formula. Therefore, we do not have an access to the detailed data. Besides, maybe it would be unethical to perform such a comprehensive assessment by a medical intern on a child. Certainly, a similar study including your items by individuals with higher level of education can be very helpful. We added your valuable comment as our recommendation for further studies.

Attachment

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

Decision Letter 1

Manuela Cabiati

16 Aug 2022

PONE-D-22-05938R1The effect of short-course point-of-care echocardiography training on the performance of medical interns in childrenPLOS ONE Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 30 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Manuela Cabiati, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

Dear author

As you noted one of the Reviewer retains your article not suitable for publication in PlosOne since him/her comments remain unsolved or not well addressed. If you answer to hos/her issues more accurately I will reconsider my position. Best regards

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Many thanks to the authors for addressing the comments

I think the manuscript is ready for publication.

Good luck!

Reviewer #2: Unfortuntaley, my questions remain unsolved. This reviewer considers these issues relevant to support the conclusions.

Regarding data, you should have collected the data at the time of the analysis. I'm really surprised that you didn't ask the question at the time of the patient evaluation.

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Mohammed Abdellatif

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PLoS One. 2022 Dec 15;17(12):e0278173. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278173.r004

Author response to Decision Letter 1


29 Oct 2022

Dear editor in chief,

We appreciate our first reviewer regarding his acceptance on our revised manuscript. Also, we acknowledge our second reviewer for his great concern. In response to his/her statement, we rechecked her/his previous comments and you can find our revisions as below.

Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Many thanks to the authors for addressing the comments

I think the manuscript is ready for publication.

Good luck!

We appreciate it.

Reviewer #2: Unfortuntaley, my questions remain unsolved. This reviewer considers these issues relevant to support the conclusions.

Regarding data, you should have collected the data at the time of the analysis. I'm really surprised that you didn't ask the question at the time of the patient evaluation.

We appreciate your comment. We put your previous comments and our responses below.

________________________________________

Reviewer #2:

Major issues

1) Recent studies has already assessed the efficacy of a point-of-care transthoracic echocardiography training for medical students (please see J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth. 2021 Mar;35(3):826-833; Pilot Feasibility Stud. 2021 Sep 14;7(1):175; Postgrad Med J. 2021 Jan;97(1143):10-15. ). The authors do not mention these studies. Therefore, they should evaluate the novelty of the present study in the light of the previous ones.

We appreciate your comment. We modified it and added the above mentioned studies in our references.

The main novelty of our manuscript can be noted as follows: Despite the development of POCUS in several medical curricula focusing on its use by medical interns, there is a lack of similar studies on children. Therefore, we aimed to measure LVEF, IVCCI, and the presence of PEff through the application of FoCUS. As we could not assess children in critical situations and do multiple FoCUS exams on one patient (child) due to ethical considerations, this study investigated the effect of short-course training on the performance of medical interns in FoCUS for measuring the parameters mentioned above in a referral pediatric cardiology ward.

2) The manuscript requires a comprehensive editing in order to better discuss the results. The reader sometimes has the impression of reading a preliminary report without adequate elaboration.

We appreciate your comment. But as you know, this study aimed to assess the concordance between the cardiologist and medical interns regarding the three mentioned parameters and most of our results primarily reported as descriptive statistics. We tried to discuss our results clinically and changed some sections due to your valuable comments.

3) In the current study, the authors claims that there was an excellent agreement (94.4%) between the cardiologist and trainees regarding LVEF. The percentage of LVEF was calculated by Teichholz formula. However, the authors should show data regarding LV end-diastolic and end-systolic internal diameters, and heart rate. Moreover, data on intraventricular wall thickness, and left ventricular posterior wall thickness at the end of systole and diastole should be provided. What about the rhythm? Please add more information.

We appreciate your great comment, but we have some ethical limitations. As you know, this preliminary study was performed by medical interns on children and indicated promising results. Despite thorough assessment of the cardiologist on each patient considering all items mentioned above, our medical interns only indicated LV end-diastolic and end-systolic diameters and our device automatically calculated LVEF by Teichholz formula. Therefore, we do not have an access to the detailed data. Besides, maybe it would be unethical to perform such a comprehensive assessment by a medical intern on a child. Certainly, a similar study including your items by individuals with higher level of education can be very helpful. We added your valuable comment as our recommendation for further studies.

Attachment

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

Decision Letter 2

Manuela Cabiati

11 Nov 2022

The effect of short-course point-of-care echocardiography training on the performance of medical interns in children.

PONE-D-22-05938R2

Dear Dr. Badeli,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

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Kind regards,

Manuela Cabiati, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Acceptance letter

Manuela Cabiati

5 Dec 2022

PONE-D-22-05938R2

The effect of short-course point-of-care echocardiography training on the performance of <bold>medical interns<bold/> in children.

Dear Dr. Badeli:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org.

Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Manuela Cabiati

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Associated Data

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