Background: Non-technical skills are relevant to surgical performance but are difficult to quantify. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between self-efficacy, which is a measure of stress-coping ability, and surgical performance.
Methods: Two hundred and sixteen basic surgical trainees were assessed on their performance of three bench model-type open and laparoscopic surgical tasks. They also completed a 10-item General Self-Efficacy (GSE) questionnaire to assess their stress-coping abilities. Their assessment scores were correlated with the GSE scores.
Results: The mean GSE score of 31.39 was higher than the recorded population norms. There was no significant correlation between GSE and surgical performance for open or laparoscopic tasks.
Conclusion: Junior surgical trainees have high self-belief scores, but these abilities are difficult to measure and quantify. More refined methods may be necessary to measure non-technical skills relevant to surgery.