Article
Exploring the synergy of technical and non-technical skills in emergency medicine
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Published: | March 12, 2015 |
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Introduction: Each of us may experience an emergency situation in everyday life. Therefore, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a topic that concerns everyone from medical expert to layperson. In contrary to laypersons, medical students receive specific training in CPR during their medical education.
Existing CPR trainings mainly focus on the so-called technical skills (e.g., ventilation or chest compression). There is no doubt that these skills are crucial to safe life. However, recent research shows that also non-technical skills (NTS), especially task management, team working and situation awareness, play a significant positive role during CPR [1], [2]. Insufficient NTS are the major avoidable weak spot in emergency medicine. Hence increasing NTS performance might help to prevent errors and therefore increase patient safety significantly [3], [4], [5].
At the conference, we would like to present and discuss a research initiative. Our research plan consists of three empirical studies. The overall aim is to investigate the synergy of technical and non-technical skills relevant for CPR performance in order to improve the current training in medical education. In the following, we briefly present the specific aim and approach of each study.
Research initiative: In the first study, we aim to examine expertise-related differences in CPR performance. In a quasi-experimental 5*2 design, the CPR performance regarding technical and non-technical skills will be compared.
In the second study, we aim to investigate how medical students acquire the relevant skills for CPR. A quasi-experimental 2*2*2 repeated measure design is used to compare different contemplation processes during skill acquisition.
In the third study, we aim to investigate the synergy of NTS and technical skills. In a quasi-experimental 2*2*2 design, the coherence between the two types of skills, especially the influence of NTS on technical performance, will be investigated.
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