Skip to main content

Table 1 Elements and dimensions of the DASH

From: Translation of the Debriefing Assessment for Simulation in Healthcare in Portuguese and cross-cultural adaptation for Portugal and Brazil

DASH element

Element dimensions

1. Establishes an engaging learning environment

• Clarifies course objectives, environment, confidentiality, roles, and expectations

• Establishes a “fiction contract” with participants

• Attends to logistic details

• Conveys a commitment to respecting learners and understanding their perspective

2. Maintains an engaging learning environment

• Clarifies debriefing objectives, roles, and expectations

• Helps participants engage in a limited-realism context

• Conveys respect for learners and concern for their psychologic safety

3. Structures the debriefing in an organized way

• Encourages trainees to express their reactions and, if needed, orients them to what happened in the simulation, near the beginning

• Guides analysis of the trainees’ performance during the middle of the session

• Collaborates with participants to summarize learning from the session near the end

4. Provokes engaging discussions and uses concrete examples and outcomes as the basis for inquiry and discussion

• Reveals own reasoning and judgments

• Facilitates discussion through verbal and nonverbal techniques

• Uses video, replay, and review devices (if available)

• Recognizes and manages the upset participant

5. Identifies and explores performance gaps

• Provides feedback on performance

• Explores the source of the performance gap

6. Helps trainees achieve or sustain good future performance

• Helps close the performance gap through discussion and teaching

• Demonstrates firm grasp of the subject

• Meets the important objectives of the session