Emergency Health Care Providers Lack Knowledge About Managing the Spine-Injured Athlete

Abstract

Context: Current practice in management of the spine-injured athletes appears to be inconsistent with literature. Moreover, evidence expands faster than integration into instruction, practice, and evaluation, likely leading to an overall lack of knowledge, both perceived and actual. Objective: The primary purpose was to evaluate athletic trainers' (ATs), paramedics', emergency medical technicians' (EMTs), and dual-credentialed personnel's actual and perceived knowledge regarding management of the spine-injured athlete. Design: Cross-sectional. Setting: Web-based knowledge assessment Patients or Other Participants: We recruited participants (N = 1305) from the National Athletic Trainers' Association, Facebook, and Twitter. Only those participants (N = 785, 60.2% completion rate) who completed the actual knowledge assessment were used in analysis (age = 35.5 ± 10.8 years, male = 378 [48.2%], female = 375 [47.8%], sex not indicated = 32 [4.1%], ATs = 726, emergency personnel = 30, dual credentialed = 29). Main Outcome Measure(s): We measured perceived and actual knowledge (10 items, 9 scored) among participants and compared subgroups (ATs, emergency personnel [paramedics and EMTs], and dual credentialed [AT and either paramedic or EMT]). Results: Participants performed poorly on the actual knowledge assessment (5.5 ± 1.2, 60.8% ± 13.5%). Participants had limited change between preassessment perceived knowledge (5.0 ± 0.7) and postassessment perceived knowledge (4.7 ± 0.8). Conclusions: We identified that participants performed poorly on the actual knowledge assessment, indicating the need for more preparation and continued training in managing spine-injured athletes. Interprofessional practice and education may improve knowledge and behavioral skills, given that diverse training and increased exposure to spine boarding likely contributed to higher performance. A lack of actual knowledge, particularly regarding life-preserving skills for spine-injury management, has potentially serious consequences for patients.