Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the clinical competence of first-year residents on the course specialising in family medicine, by applying a structured objective clinical test (SOCT) for simultaneous assessment of cognitive, affective and psychomotor areas. DESIGN: Observational and descriptive. SETTING: Family medicine clinics in the metropolitan area of Mexico City.Participants. 89 doctors on the specialist course in Family Medicine at the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). MAIN MEASUREMENTS: After prior design of comparison lists, expert validation of content, and design of support material for the evaluation and pilot study, a SOCT with ten themes or sections, eight dynamic and two static, was administered. The cut-off point for competent performance was 60 out of 100, both in each section and in the overall average. The statistical analysis was univariate, using descriptive statistics. RESULTS: The overall average of scores in all sections was under 60. The highest average was 73, in the section for monitoring healthy children. In the five highest-scoring sections, the scattering was lower than in the other five. There were low scores in the family study section. CONCLUSIONS: Academic performance, as evaluated by a SOCT measuring clinical competence, was low. This kind of test enabled clinical competence to be assessed more objectively. Interval evaluation scales need to be tested so as to evaluate better the quality of the performance of clinical activities.