None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
In health-related disciplines such as nursing and medicine, practical assessment centre around high acuity simulated patients. In the emerging field of undergraduate paramedicine education, little research has explored this type of assessment nor the associated physiological and cognitive stress. We don't know whether this stress enhances or hinders learning? Acute stress response is well known to lead to performance degradation, so are these students being set up to fail when really educators should be encouraging learning as a priority. Research must be undertaken to determine how much physiological and cognitive stress is too much. Our hypothesis is that students who appraise a scenario as a threat will perform at a lower clinical ability than those who adopt a challenge appraisal.
Interventions
Participants role play as first responders in an emergency situation and undertake a high-acuity medical scenario. The approximate duration of the scenario is 30 minutes and participants complete this alone. Quantitative assessments are completed pre and post scenario.
Across the following days, training and education will be provided to establish a challenge mindset in the participants. The training involves participants undertaking self-directed observation of short videos and completing onli
Participants role play as first responders in an emergency situation and undertake a high-acuity medical scenario. The approximate duration of the scenario is 30 minutes and participants complete this alone. Quantitative assessments are completed pre and post scenario. Across the following days, training and education will be provided to establish a challenge mindset in the participants. The training involves participants undertaking self-directed observation of short videos and completing online interactive clinical learning modules. These modules are existing components of the current Bachelor of Paramedicine curriculum. They include overviews of pathophysiology of conditions such as anaphylaxis, severe asthma, opioid overdose (as some examples) and also include pharmacodynamics of medications used to treat patients presenting in high acuity situations. Participants are asked to spend 1 hour per day across a seven day period completing this training online. A paramedicine instructor is available to answer email queries across this period. Participants are also given a copy of an short (7 page) manual with tips and suggestions to allow a challenge mindset to be developed instead of a threat appraisal. This learning manual has been developed specifically for this study. Within the learning manual, participants are asked to check a box daily to indicate they have completed their one hour of self-directed training. Seven days after the original scenario, the same participants will complete a different but equivalent scenario. Participants serve as their own control and are assessed pre and post scenario in both occurrences.
Sponsors
University of Southern Queensland
Study design
Allocation
Non-randomised trial
Intervention model
Crossover
Primary purpose
Educational / counselling / training
Masking
Blinded (masking used) (Subject)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
1. Participants must be proficient in English because the tasks require communication. 2. To maintain a consistent level of academic ability, only students with a GPA of 5.0 and above are considered to be eligible participants. 3. Final year undergraduate Bachelor of paramedicine students will be targeted for recruitment into this study. If eligible student numbers are low, then cross-institutional recruitment may be explored via email though other universities in Victoria that offer a recognised paramedicine degree and Facebook posts via their student societies.
Exclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria included diagnosed anxiety or stress-related disorders, those taking medication which affects the central nervous system or cardiovascular system (e.g. medications for epilepsy, anxiety, mood disorders, sleeping tablets such as Stilnox, benzodiazepines, melatonin or beta blockers).
Outcome results
None listed