Introducing the Safe Brain Initiative's EEG boot camp for anaesthesia for standardised training on how to use the electroencephalogram for perioperative care

BACKGROUND: Monitoring the brain under general anaesthesia using the electroencephalogram (EEG) can help to optimise anaesthetic levels and improve patient outcomes. Therefore, it has been recommended by several societies and organisations. Yet, many clinicians only consider the processed indices, even though they are prone to interference and their information value is limited in many situations. To use EEG monitoring systems to their full potential, clinicians need to be able to integrate all information provided. Here, we introduce a structured teaching course and evaluate its effect on the participants' knowledge and attitudes.

METHODS: The course contents were derived from learning goals, that we considered as required to leverage the full potential of the EEG monitoring systems. The course structure was built using several didactic tools to facilitate learning, including a high level of algorithmisation as well as tools for knowledge repetition, activation, and transfer. To investigate the effects of the course, we compared the participants' self-ratings of their knowledge with regard to the learning goals as well as their attitudes towards using EEG monitoring before and after the course. For this purpose, we anonymously questioned the participants of one course conducted in Greifswald/Germany in December 2023.

RESULTS: The ratings of 36 participants before and after the course show that participation led to a significant improvement in knowledge throughout all learning goals (paired Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, p < 0.001 for each learning goal). Self-ratings of knowledge and competence increased across all learning goals from a mean of 1.9 before the course to 4.0 after the course, rated on Likert scales between 0 ('No knowledge/competency') and 5 ('Expert knowledge/competency'). Furthermore, the attitude towards applying EEG monitoring during general anaesthesia improved significantly (paired Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p = 0.019) from 3.0 ± 1.7 to 3.8 ± 1.2 (mean ± sd), rated on a Likert scale between 0 ('never') and 5 ('always').

CONCLUSIONS: We show that the course improves the participants' self-ratings of knowledge with and attitude towards EEG monitoring. By providing teaching methods and resources with standardized contents we aim to facilitate training of the highest quality and motivating clinicians to improve anaesthesia practice, and ultimately patient outcome.