Experiential education enhancing paramedic perspective and interpersonal communication with older patients: a controlled study

Abstract

BackgroundParamedics are required to provide care to an aging population with multidimensional and complex issues. As such educators need to prepare undergraduate paramedics to recognise, assess and manage a broad range of psychosocial care and support issues beyond somatic conditions. Experiential educational interventions with older people provide realistic and contextualised experience which can improve the provision of holistic patient focused care.MethodsThis was a single institution controlled before-after study with parallel groups, conducted in Australia in 2017. It was designed to compare the effectiveness of an educational program related to older people (intervention), verses no intervention (control) on paramedic student attitudes, knowledge and behavior with older patients.ResultsA total of 124 second year paramedic students were included in this study; 60 in the intervention and 64 in the control group. Their demographics and Time 1 baseline results were homogeneous. Both groups showed improvement in communication skills with real older patients (p < 0.001, η2 = 0.41) and (p < 0.001, η2 = 0.35). The intervention group showed greater improvements in the ‘understands the patient’s perspective’ element for both the self-assessment (p < 0.001) and the clinician assessment (p = 0.01). Multiple linear regression Model 1 found gender (β = − 0.25; p = 0.01) was the best predictor of clinician-assessed communication, with females having higher scores. Knowledge and attitudes remained relatively unchanged for both groups.ConclusionsAs the first study to observe, measure and report on the interpersonal communication skills of paramedic student’s with ‘real’ older patients we can report that these skills were from fair to good at baseline and improved from good to very good post the intervention. Overall improvement was notably better in the ‘understanding the patients perspective element’ for the intervention group who had conducted one-one visits with an older person.

Undergraduate paramedic students and interpersonal communication development: a scoping review

“…Self-reflection demonstrated further improvements in the students’ learning. Results also demonstrated an increase in the students confidence and empathy levels, which was further reflected in the work by Ross et al ( 2018 ). In this study, communication skills improved in all students who practiced communicating with an older person, however those who had more one on one time, developed more empathy towards this patient group.…”

Non‐technical skills in paramedicine: A scoping review

“…A mixed‐methodology study identified that exposure to older groups improved student paramedic confidence when communicating with older patients (Ross & Williams, 2014). This study was later supported by a controlled trial (n = 124) that identified that student paramedics who received a geriatric educational program demonstrated better communication with older patients than those who did not receive this training (Ross et al, 2018).…”

“…These included cancer, dementia, elderly, and pediatric patients (Credland, Hurwood, & McKenzie, 2020; Drewitz‐Chesney, 2019; Noack, Kleinert, & Muller, 2020). Two articles by Ross et al (Ross, Jennings, Gosling, & Williams, 2018; Ross & Williams, 2014) investigated student paramedic communication with older patients. A mixed‐methodology study identified that exposure to older groups improved student paramedic confidence when communicating with older patients (Ross & Williams, 2014).…”

Experiential Learning for Psychomotor Skills Development of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Students: An Action Research

“…Therefore, teaching and learning must be tailored to meet the emerging demands of effective clinical practice. Experiential learning is essential for enhancing the relational and psychomotor skills development in health care students because of the intricacy of health-illness phenomena and the uncertainties associated with health care students (3,4). Experiential learning refers to learning by doing and entails hands on experiences.…”