Educational perspective for the identification of essential competencies required for approaching patients with COVID-19.

Abstract

Health professionals are at the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic and are directly exposed to infection hazards. Therefore, they should have the essential competencies for approaching patients. The study aimed to identify essential competencies required for approaching patients with COVID-19. All postgraduate health professionals at the Syrian Virtual University SVU (n=28) were invited to participate in the study during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, resulting in 20 postgraduates accepting. The Delphi technique was adopted for identifying competencies in medical education and a virtual meeting was undertaken through the University Management System in order to provide instruction and create a list of competencies. Competency domains were divided into 'knowledge', 'skills', and 'attitudes' and were classified into four categories: etiology, assessment and diagnosis, management, and prognosis. Fifty-two essential competencies were identified; 7 competencies on etiology, 7 related to assessment and diagnosis, 34 related to management, and 4 related to prognosis. It is hoped that the identified competencies would help health professionals to deliver the best health care for COVI-19 patients, as well as help policy-makers to support comprehensive training programmes that can equip health professionals with the required competencies to fight the pandemic.