Surgical competency for urethrovesical anastomosis during robot-assisted radical prostatectomy: development and validation of the robotic anastomosis competency evaluation.

OBJECTIVE

To develop and validate an assessment tool for the performance of urethrovesical anastomosis (UVA).

METHODS

A multicenter, prospective, observational study was conducted in 2 phases. Phase 1, development and content validation, used a panel of 5 experienced robotic surgeons to develop a 6-domain scoring system, Robotic Anastomosis Competence Evaluation (RACE), to assess technical skills for performing UVA. Phase 2, construct validation and reliability, used 5 blinded experienced robotic surgeons to rate UVA recordings of expert, advanced beginner, and novice groups. Content validation index was determined to report consensus in phase 1. Phase 2 involved comparison of RACE scores among the 3 groups. Wilcoxon rank-sum tests were used to compare RACE scores.

RESULTS

Two rounds of Delphi methodology achieved consensus on language and content of RACE. Eight experts, 10 advanced beginners, and 10 novice robotic surgeons participated in the validation study. The overall score for the expert group (27.3) was higher than that of the advanced beginner (19.5; P = .04) and novice groups (13.6; P = .001). The advanced beginner and novice groups differed in overall scores (P = .03).

CONCLUSION

RACE allows evaluation of surgical competence to perform UVA for robot-assisted radical prostatectomy, when using an inanimate model.