Journal of perioperative practice
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The aim of this study was to identify the cognitive non-technical skills (i.e. situation awareness and decision making) used by anaesthetic assistants, as part of the development of a specialty-specific behavioural rating system for anaesthetic assistants. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with anaesthetic assistants (n=22), anaesthetic consultants (n=11) and trainee anaesthetists (n=12) in Scotland. The interviews were transcribed and thematically analysed. ⋯ Decision making (i.e. considering options, selecting actions and reviewing decisions) by the anaesthetic assistants was reported much less frequently--only 34 participants described 89 phrases. Situation awareness is a key non-technical skill used by anaesthetic assistants, however decision making was less commonly described as required by anaesthetic assistants. This provides qualitative data to support the development of a non-technical skills taxonomy for anaesthetic assistants.