Clinical competencies of emergency medical services paramedics in responding to emergency conditions using Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in Guilan

Ehsan Kazemnejad-Leili,Payman Asadi,Seyyed Mahdi Zia Ziabari,Arash Amirrafiei,Fatemeh Haghshenas-Bakerdar

doi:10.34172/jept.2021.03

Abstract

Objective: Evaluating the abilities of emergency medical services (EMS) staff who are in the frontline of the diseases could be an excellent reflection of the accuracy of curriculum both before and after graduation. This study was done to determine the clinical competencies of Guilan EMS staff in responding to emergency conditions using Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). Methods: In this descriptive study, 70 EMS staff from selected Emergency Centres in Guilan were recruited. Data were collected using a questionnaire and a checklist which included 9 different skills. Validity of the checklist was assessed by obtaining the opinions of 10 experts. The content validity index (CVI) and content validity ratio (CVR) of the checklist were 0.7 and 0.8, respectively. The reliability of the checklist was obtained using the test-retest method (r=0.89). In order to collect data, observations were done using the designated checklist. Data were analysed using SPSS software version 22 and descriptive statistical tests. Results: Findings showed that 56.3% of the paramedics got good scores for trauma competency but the mean scores for two competencies of spinal cord immobilization and vehicle extrication were low, indicating major skills problem. There was a statistically significant relationship between education (P=0.02) and work experience (P=0.03) as well as clinical skills in confronting trauma. Conclusion: Although the EMS staff had an acceptable range of performance in most of the skills, it seems that there is a need for training of performance-based competencies in which paramedics had a poor performance.

Highlights

In today’s modern industrial societies, trauma is one of the most important issues in most countries
This descriptive cross-sectional study was undertaken on 70 emergency medical services (EMS) staff in the capital of Guilan (Rasht) who were selected by the convenience sampling method
Based on chi-square test, a significant relationship was observed between the performance scores of EMS staff at different stations and their educational level (P = 0.02) and work experience (P = 0.03) (Table 3)

Summary

Introduction

In today’s modern industrial societies, trauma is one of the most important issues in most countries. To reduce the morbidity and mortality rate of trauma, an appropriate planning for the care and treatment of these patients is needed. Such a planning covers a wide range of treatments, from pre-hospital management to rehabilitation centers. The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is a useful method to assess both physical and knowledge-based skills. In this approach, assessment is conducted at a series of stations with one or two aspects of competence being tested at each station [11]. Due to the limited number of studies concerning the competencies of pre-hospital EMS staff, this study was designed to determine the clinical competencies of Guilan EMS staff in responding to emergency conditions using OSCE

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion