Materials and Methods

Participants

Participants were recruited by a questionnaire sent out via the Association of Otolaryngologists in Training mailing list, a national group.
The questionnaire was created with Google forms. Completed questionnaires were accepted between September and November 2019. Information was collected on the participant’s grade and sex but was otherwise kept anonymous.
Grade of participant was split into consultant, SAS grade (which includes staff grade, specialty doctor and associate specialist with at least 4 years experience since medical school), Senior STR (ST7-8), Junior STR (ST3-6) and core trainee/ core trainee equivalent doctor.

Inclusion Criteria

Actively practicing otolaryngologists were invited to complete the study.

Assessment of Performance Anxiety

An adapted version of the Sport Competition and Anxiety Test (SCAT) was sent out to surgeons (5). This questionnaire has been validated for athletes and is used in professional sports to assess anxiety levels.
The SCAT questionnaire consists of fifteen questions related to the performance and anxiety levels in athletes (see Table 1). We supplemented the word compete with operate so as to make the questionnaire applicable to surgeons. Answers were returned as either rarely/ sometimes/ often and were scored as either 1/2/3 depending on the question. Five questions within the questionnaire are not used to calculate total anxiety so as to reduce the likelihood of an internal response-set bias. The SCAT test captures a snapshot of the subjective reporting of stress.
The ten included questions are summed in order to provide an overall anxiety score. A score of <17 is classed as low anxiety, 17-24 normal anxiety and >24 high level anxiety.

Statistical analysis

IBM SPSS v 25.0 was used to analyse the statistical significance of the data. Unpaired student’s T test was used to assess statistical difference between independent samples. P was assumed to be significant at <0.05.