Abstract
Background: Athletic Trainers (ATs) have a vast scope of practice that involves many skill sets, one of these skill sets is Emergency Management (EM). Like many health professions ATs do not use all their skills daily, this can lead to a decreased confidence and skill decay over time. The purpose of this study is to determine what impacted ATs’ confidence in emergency skills.
Methods: A convenience sample of ATs (n=22) attending a simulation-based Continuing Education Unit (CEU) event. Twenty-two ATs (age 36.7±10.8 years; 13 males, 9 females) completed a 22-question online survey prior to the CEU event. The survey was based upon the authors’ content expertise, the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE), and the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT) Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) standards. Demographic information including route to certification, clinical setting and questions regarding EM continuing education as well as confidence questions about skills based upon a 5-point Likert scale (from extremely unconfident to extremely confident). Overall means and standard deviations were calculated for all demographic and confidence variables. As all variables violated assumptions of normality and homogeneity, Kruskal-Wallis tests were calculated against five factors (route of certification, graduation from an accredited program, clinical setting, and elapsed time since practicing an EAP).
Results: Twenty-two ATs participated with years of clinical experience ranging from less than one to 36 (mean=13 ±11 years). Most of the AT’s were in the secondary school setting (n= 13) while the others worked in the collegiate setting (n=5) or an orthopedic clinic (n=4). Route of certification was significant for confidence of using a spine board in a non-cervical situation, H=9.1 (p
Conclusions: We find that many factors can impact the confidence of an ATs’ EM skills, but not all impact confidence uniformly. Route of certification affected applying a spine board to a non-cervical patient. Clinical setting had the most impact on using both a rectal thermometer and joint reductions. Elapsed time since practicing an EAP most affected confidence for using cold immersion and hemostatic agents. Based on these limited findings, we can determine that there may be additional factors that may impact the results of confidence in emergency skills.
Methods: A convenience sample of ATs (n=22) attending a simulation-based Continuing Education Unit (CEU) event. Twenty-two ATs (age 36.7±10.8 years; 13 males, 9 females) completed a 22-question online survey prior to the CEU event. The survey was based upon the authors’ content expertise, the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE), and the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT) Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) standards. Demographic information including route to certification, clinical setting and questions regarding EM continuing education as well as confidence questions about skills based upon a 5-point Likert scale (from extremely unconfident to extremely confident). Overall means and standard deviations were calculated for all demographic and confidence variables. As all variables violated assumptions of normality and homogeneity, Kruskal-Wallis tests were calculated against five factors (route of certification, graduation from an accredited program, clinical setting, and elapsed time since practicing an EAP).
Results: Twenty-two ATs participated with years of clinical experience ranging from less than one to 36 (mean=13 ±11 years). Most of the AT’s were in the secondary school setting (n= 13) while the others worked in the collegiate setting (n=5) or an orthopedic clinic (n=4). Route of certification was significant for confidence of using a spine board in a non-cervical situation, H=9.1 (p
Conclusions: We find that many factors can impact the confidence of an ATs’ EM skills, but not all impact confidence uniformly. Route of certification affected applying a spine board to a non-cervical patient. Clinical setting had the most impact on using both a rectal thermometer and joint reductions. Elapsed time since practicing an EAP most affected confidence for using cold immersion and hemostatic agents. Based on these limited findings, we can determine that there may be additional factors that may impact the results of confidence in emergency skills.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Pages | 17 |
| State | Published - 17 Feb 2023 |
| Event | Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences Research Week 2023 - Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, 1111 W. 17th street, Tulsa, United States Duration: 13 Feb 2023 → 17 Feb 2023 https://medicine.okstate.edu/events/index.html?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D160681489 |
Conference
| Conference | Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences Research Week 2023 |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | United States |
| City | Tulsa |
| Period | 13/02/23 → 17/02/23 |
| Internet address |
Keywords
- emergency management
- emergency skills