A National Survey of Turkish Emergency Residents’ Perspectives Regarding Interventional Skills

Abstract

Objective
Interventional procedures play an important role in the education of emergency medical residency training. There is no study in Turkey yet which is investigating the level of interventional skills of emergency department residents. The aim of our study is to investigate the perceptions of the emergency medicine residents, regarding their skill level for interventional procedures.
Material and Method
A questionnaire with 17 questions was applied between June 2011 and October 2011, to all emergency medicine residents, who has been working in university hospitals (UHs) and training and educational hospitals (ETHs). In order to determine perception of skills, a visual analogous scale was used whereas closed-end questions had been used in order to determine the number of skills made during the education.
Results
A total of 493 residents were enrolled to the study which is from 31 UHs and 18 ETHs. Emergency medicine residents in UHs indicated that the number of interventions performed for acquiring skills during the education of emergency medical proficiency (UH VAS=5.60±2.86, ETH VAS=4.55±2.99, p<0.001), and the skill level for performing these interventions (UH VAS=6.61±2.40, ETH VAS=6.01±2.83, p=0.01) were superior comparing to the emergency medicine residents in ETHs.
The three most successful interventions for the all emergency medicine residents were found to be defibrillation/cardioversion (VAS=6.85±3.07), endotracheal intubation (VAS= 6.80±3.19) and paracentesis (VAS=6.31±3.78) respectively. Measurement of intraocular pressure (VAS=0.91±1.93), emergent thoracotomy (VAS=1.10±2.09), extracting foreign body with biomicroscope (VAS=1.18±2.41), cricothyrotomy (VAS=1.44±3.36), retrograde intubation (VAS=1.46±2.57), repairing of extensor tendon (VAS=1.80±2.56), emergent labor (VAS=1.89±2.65), administration of thrombolytic treatment (VAS=2.44±3.26) and arthrocentesis (VAS=2.61±3.34) were determined as the most inadequate interventional procedures.
Conclusion
It was established that the emergency medicine residents feel themselves incompetent in respect to many interventions located in the training program for emergency medical training. The number of interventions performed for getting the adequate skills during the education of emergency medical proficiency and the skills level for performing these interventions for the emergency medicine residents in UHs were superior comparing to the emergency medicine residents in ETHs.