Background: The Dundee Endoscopic Psychomotor Tester (DEPT) was developed as a means of obtaining an objective assessment of endoscopic performance using a single hand. This paper evaluates the reliability of the system.
Methods: Twenty medical students were tested on the DEPT for four runs using the dominant hand. Test-retest reproducibility and coefficient alpha to measure the internal consistency were used as indexes of the reliability of the DEPT system.
Results: A positive correlation was found between different runs in all outcome measures of the DEPT. Coefficient a was > 0.7 for all parameters.
Conclusion: DEPT provides a reliable method for the objective assessment of single-handed endoscopic performance in terms of aiming and force exerted on the target plate.