Journal of Emergency Practice and Trauma

The ability of the emergency medical service personnel to take patients’ medical history

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Ali Sadrollahi 1
Adeleh Gharataghani 2
Mehdi Mahmoudi 1
Fardaneh Gholipour 3

1 Department of Nursing Science, Bandar Gaz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bandar Gaz, Iran

2 Department of Clinical Affairs, Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Gorgan, Iran

3 Department of Nursing, Khalkhal Branch, Islamic Azad University, Khalkhal, Iran

https://doi.org/10.15171/jept.2017.32
Abstract
Objective: The key point to detect patients’ need in pre-hospital emergency is to have high ability to take medical history. All research findings show that this ability is low. The objective of this research is to investigate the ability to take medical history of patients among the personnel of pre-hospital emergency medical service (EMS) in Golestan province, Iran.
Methods: This research was a descriptive cross-sectional study carried in 2016. The population included non-staff technicians and an operator working in the message center (N = 171). The samples were selected using multi-stage cluster sampling. Data were collected by a researcher-developed questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS software version 16 conducting descriptive and inferential statistics. All tests were administered at a significance level of P < 0.05.
Results: One hundred sixty-five (96.5%) participants were male. The mean score of the ability to take medical history was 58.4 ± 11.1. Therefore, 95 participants (58.3 %) had poor ability and 64 participants (39.3 %) owned moderate ability. The highest score concerning the ability to take medical history was for the aspect of professional knowledge (mean rank = 5). The most influential aspect in the ability was respectively for ‘professional knowledge’ (P = 0.0001, Beta = 0.509). Pearson correlation coefficient indicated a relationship (r=-0.149, P = 0.05) between the ability to take medical history and age.
Conclusion: The results of the current study indicated that the ability to take medical history among the personnel of pre-hospital medical emergency of Golestan province was low. Therefore, a thorough review of trainings promoting personnel’s professional knowledge is urgently required.

Keywords

Medical History
Emergency
Patient
Pre-hospital
Subjects
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Journal of Emergency Practice and Trauma
Volume 4, Issue 2
July 2018
Pages 55-61

  • Receive Date 22 July 2017
  • Revise Date 14 September 2017
  • Accept Date 18 September 2017

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